LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Class 


NATURE-NOTES  AND 
IMPRESSIONS 


NATURE-NOTES 


AND 


IMPRESSIONS 

IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 
BY 

MADISON    CAWEIN 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  AND  COMPANY 

1906 


Copyright,  1906, 
BY  MADISON  CAWEIN. 


THE   UNIVERSITY    PRESS,   CAMBRIDGE,  U.  S.  A. 


C0  tjje 

OF 

GEORGE    H.    ELLWANGER 

TRUE  FRIEND  AND  LOVER  AND   INTERPRETER  OF 

NATURE, 

AS  A  SLIGHT  TOKEN   OF   ESTEEM 
AND  ADMIRATION 


Would  I  could  talk  as  the  flowers  talk 

To  my  soul  /  and  the  stars,  in  their  ceaseless  walk 

Through  Heaven  / — and  tell  to  the  high  and  low 

The  things  that  they  say,  so  all  might  know 

The  dreams  they  dream,  and  have  told  to  me ! 

As  Nature  sees  would  I  could  see  ! 

Then  might  I  speak  with  authority  /  — • 

/  stand  below  and  look  above, 

And  see  her  busy  with  life  and  love, 

And  can  tell  the  world  so  little  thereof. 

Oh,  for  a  soul  that  could  feel  much  less  / 

Or,  feeling  more,  could  so  express 

The  things  it  feels  and  their  tenderness  : 

The  very  essence,  the  soul  of  art, 

And  all  the  heavens  and  hells  of  heart! 

Then  might  I  rise  to  the  very  peak, 

The  summit  of  song,  which  poets  seek, 

And  speak  with  a  voice  as  the  masters  speak. 


FOREWORD 

WITH  few  if  any  changes  the 
contents  of  this  volume,  both 
prose  and  verse,  with  the 
exception  of  the  short  sketch  at  the 
end  and  one  or  two  of  the  poems, 
have  been  copied  almost  word  for 
word  from  my  note-books  of  many 
years.  They  are  impressions,  ideas, 
fancies,  more  or  less  fragmentary,  that 
struck  me  at  the  moment;  notes, sug 
gestions,  what  you  will,  jotted  down 
hurriedly, — sometimes  taking  the  form 
of  prose,  other  times  that  of  verse  as 
the  fancy  moved  me, — while  wander 
ing  in  the  woods  at  all  seasons,  making 
a  record  of  days  extending  over  a 
period  of  some  twenty  odd  years.  All 
the  verses  and  prose-notes  contained 
in  the  first  part,  "1883-1886,"  were 
written  while  hardly  more  than  a  boy, 
vii 


Foreword 

between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and 
twenty-one  and  while  attending  high 
school. 

A  number  of  the  verses  have  ap 
peared  in  the  magazines  during  the 
past  year  or  two :  several  fragments, 
under  the  title  "  Reed  Notes,"  in 
"The  Atlantic  ";"Autum.n  Etchings" 
in  the  "Outlook";  and  others  in 
"Ainslee's,"  "Success,"  "Smart  Set," 
"  Lippincott's,"  "Metropolitan,"  and 
"  Munsey's." 

MADISON  CAWEIN. 
LOUISVILLE,  Kv. 


Vlll 


CONTENTS 

Nature-Notes  and  Impressions 

PAGE 

1883-1886    * 

1887-1890 46 

1891-1900 79 

1901-1905 135 

Poems 

CATKINS 254 

ANNOUNCEMENT 258 

"  WHEN  SPRING  COMES  DOWN  THE  WILD- 
WOOD  WAY" 260 

HILDA  OF  THE  HILLSIDE 261 

DAWN  IN  THE  ALLEGHANIES 263 

Music 265 

AUTUMN  ETCHINGS 267 

WOOD- WAYS 272 

THE  CHARCOAL-BURNER'S  HUT.     .     .     .  273 

IN  CLAY 276 

ix 


Contents 

PAGE 

GRAY  SKIES 277 

SUNSET  DREAMS 277 

MENDICANTS 279 

WINTER  RAIN 280 

MARINERS      . 2^x 

Prose  Sketch 

WOMAN  OR — WHAT? 287 


NATURE-NOTES 
and  IMPRESSIONS 


Nature  never  did  betray  the  heart  that  loved  her. — 

WORDSWORTH. 

1883-1886 

I  HAVE  not  delved  in  the  ruins 
of  antiquity,  nor  moralized  upon 
the  past,  as  Byron  did,  but  have 
kept,  or  tried  to  keep,  two  lines  of 
Keats,  two  lines  of  Endymion,  for 
ever    in    mind    while    writing,    and 
striven  to  the  uttermost  to  make  my 
lines  worthy  the  text. 


Lead  me,  thou  Bard  of  Beauty,  through 

those  caves 

Of  pale  Diana !  let  me  hear  the  moan 
Of  Ocean,  sorrowing  with  all  his  waves 
As  once  he  sorrowed  on  that  Island  lone 

i  I 


Nature-Notes 

In  siren  moonlight.    Here,  where  twilight 

paves 
The  woodland  paths,  I  seem  to  hear  her 

trail 

Dim  raiment;    her,  that  damsel  who  en 
slaves 

My  soul ;  that  Beauty,  sad,  divinely  pale, 
That    haunts    thy    song,    mastering    the 

gamut  whole 
Of  dreams  and  music;   on  whose  easeful 

breast,  — 
As  once  Endymion's  head,  soft-dreaming, 

pressed 
That  Indian  maiden's  bosom,  —  rests  my 

soul. 


O  let  me  sing  as  thou  didst,  Keats,  and 

die! 
With  soul  poured  on  the  circling  starry 

night; 

When  Dian's  lune  hangs  dewy  in  the  sky, 
And    the    wild    nightingale    with    an 
guished  might 
Bewails   in   some  dense  bramble's  spicy 

dusk 

Its  old  heart-sorrow  to  the  wild  rose 
wan; 

2 


Nature-Notes 

Or  let  me,  like  thyself,  drink  in  the  musk 
Of   some   dull    draught   from   Lethe's 

waters  drawn, 
And  sink,  as  thou  didst,  into  dreamless 

sleep, 
Where  disappointment,  heartache,  grief 

and  scorn, 

And  human  misery  can  no  longer  heap 
The   soul   that   treads    life's   path   set 

round  with  thorn; 

Ay!   fall  asleep,  as  thou  didst  fall  asleep 
Under  the  alien  skies,  of  hope  forlorn! 


In  the  forest  of  music  often  and  often, 
To  the  murmuring  song  of  the  winds  and 

waters, 

Have  our  spirits  mingled  and  mixed 
In  the  wildflower  dance  of  the  Hours 
On  the  mossy  carpet  under  the  whispering 

leaves : 

Or  wandered,  hand  in  shadowy  hand, 
Beneath  the  song-suggestive  stillness  of 

the  moon: 
Or  leaned,  listening, 
Over  deep  glens  of  echoing  green, 
Carved  in  the  ancient  bosoms  of  the  hills 
3 


Nature-Notes 

By  sonorous  and  impetuous  waters, 
Bearing  upon  their  foamy  crests 
Crescents  and  points,  starry  and  still, 
Of  reflected  emerald  flame, 
When  the  heavens  bloomed  and  blazed 

with  a  million  quivering  fires. 
Dost  thou  know  her  name? 
Fairest  of  the  Daughters  of  Music  is  she, 
Loveliest  of  all  the  Children  of  Art. 


The  puff-ball  of  the  autumn  ways 
is  Puck's  fat  fist  thrust  threateningly 
out  of  the  half-concealing  weeds  at 
the  bee  to  whom  the  blossom  offers 
her  milk-white  bosom. 


When  winter  nights  are  cold  and  shrill, 

And  winds  sit  rocking  wild  their  arms, 
Far  off,  beyond  the  treeless  hill, 

Sound  ghostly  faint  the  owl's  alarms. 
Wail,  wail,  thou  bird  of  ill  omen, 

Within  thy  freezing  glen! 
Screech,   screech  through  all  the  frosty 
night 

Where  gleams  the  cold  moonlight! 
4 


Nature-Notes 

Well  with  man's  mood  thy  song  accords, 
Thy  song  that  knows  but  wailing  words. 


Lo,  where  the  oats  in  barn  are  housed, 

The  screech-owl  sits  and  croons  and 

cries, 
Until  the  cocks  are  all  aroused 

And  know  to-night  some  pullet  dies. 
Hush,  hush,  thou  staring  owl ! 

And  leave  the  roosting  fowl ! 
Go,  seek  the  shivering  wood, 

And  there,  where  wild  winds  brood, 
Sing  to  the  soul  that  hope  has  lost, 
The  soul  that  still  is  tempest-tost. 

When  snows  drift  deep  the  forest  path, 

And  sleet  bows  down  the  strongest  trees, 
Like    Edgar's    fear    and    Lear's    crazed 
wrath, 

The  screech-owl's  voice  makes  wild  the 

breeze. 
Mourn,  mourn,  thou  feathered  witch 

Above  the  frozen  ditch ! 
Weep,  weep,  unto  the  icy  gale, 

Where  icicles  hang  pale, 
As  weeps  the  heart,  ingratitude 
Makes  winter  of,  the  grief  pursued. 

5 


Nature-Notes 

Like  a  pearl,  dissolving  in  a  goblet 
of  golden  wine,  is  the  new  moon  in 
the  drowning  deeps  of  the  sunset. 


JULY  9 

The  sea-pink  and  the  tall  wild  bell- 
flower  divide  the  honors  of  July;  the 
one,  pearly  pink,  the  other,  turquoise- 
azure,  conspicuously  placed  in  her 
flower-garland  in  fragrant  frater 
nity,  each  proud  of  its  showy  loveli 
ness  and  of  the  abundant  beauty  of 
the  month  that  bore  them. 

Toadstools,  large  and  little,  over 
run  the  woods  to-day  after  a  day  and 
night  of  rain:  red  and  yellow  and 
white,  green  and  saffron  and  gray; 
upright,  sidewise;  some  with  the 
woodland  loam  and  leaves,  upheaved 
with  them,  still  strewing  their  tops; 
graceful  and  slender,  or  bloated  and 
distorted  they  stand;  poisonous-look 
ing  some  of  them,  and  of  a  blue  mot 
tled  color,  which,  when  broken,  exude 
6 


Nature-Notes 

a  thin  cobalt-colored  watery  juice  that 
stains  whatever  it  touches;  some  of 
them  a  burnt-umber  brown  and  of 
enormous  size,  looking  like  huge  flat 
hats,  rims  turned  up,  swollen  with 
rain,  rotting  and  reeking  in  the  under 
woods  and  filling  the  air  with  a  fetid 
fungous  odor. 

Great  clumps  of  the  Mayapples, 
beaten  down  and  ruined  by  the  rain 
here  and  there  by  the  wayside,  show 
the  smooth  green  and  ripening  yellow 
of  their  oval  fruit,  often  too  large  and 
heavy  for  the  stalk  to  support. 

The  elecampane  and  the  black-eyed 
Susan,  with  their  frank,  wide  eyes  of 
gold  and  bronze;  the  thimble- weed, 
with  its  terminal  greenish  white  blos 
soms  and  stiff  thyrsus-like  thimbles 
of  green  thrust  from  and  over  the 
surrounding  briers  and  weeds;  and 
the  lacy  white  of  the  wild-carrot 
together  with  the  bugled  scarlet  of  the 
trumpet-vine,  make  a  perfect  riot  of 
7 


Nature-Notes 

color  in  an  angle  of  an  old  worm- 
fence  separating  a  bit  of  fallow-field 
from  a  bit  of  sown,  wherein  a  bob- 
white  keeps  calling ;  repeatedly  tying, 
as  it  were,  with  a  thread  of  three 
notes,  the  stillness  and  the  heat:  the 
first  two,  soft,  careful,  and  prelimi 
nary;  the  last  one,  whipped  out  em 
phatically,  straight  as  a  thread  thrust 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle,  complet 
ing  and  forming  the  final  knot  to  its 
own  satisfaction  and  that  also  of  the 
listening  summer  day. 

Across  a  wooded  vista  a  red-bird 
suddenly  wings.  Its  flight  is  as  the 
swift  unfurling  of  a  ribbon  of  living 
crimson  uniting  tree  to  tree,  with  a 
bright  bowknot  of  silken  song  at 
either  end. 


In  the  careless  shadow  of  a  flower 
ing  tree   she   sat  —  a   witch   whiter 
than  a  windflower.    Her  song  was  all 
of  poison,  —  hemlock,  —  the  squeez- 
8 


Nature-Notes 

ing  of  the  dark  juice  through  white 
fingers.  A  sound  as  of  owlet  wings 
kept  time  to  her  wild  singing.  At  her 
feet  lay  a  youth  with  closed  eyes, 
whose  lips  and  forehead  she  kissed 
repeatedly,  each  kiss  leaving  a  mark 
as  of  a  serpent's  fang.  He  was 
dead,  and  yet  he  seemed  to  live,  his 
heart  and  soul,  through  her  kisses, 
ashes  and  dust  within  him.  His  face 
was  pinched  into  smiles  that  were 
not  smiles.  She  laughed,  and  be 
neath  her  laugh  the  monkshood  and 
nightshade  covered  themselves  with 
poison-dripping  blossoms,  and  the 
wild-rose  was  slimed  with  snails. 


The  spirits  of  the  tempest  advance 
their  embattled  hosts,  thunderous 
rank  on  rank,  black  with  their  shields 
of  midnight.  Beneath  the  flashings 
of  their  terrible  helmets  and  the  hiss 
ing  and  rebounding  rain  of  their 
9 


Nature-Notes 

arrows,  the  hills  lift  up  their  writhing 
arms  of  trees,  and  the  river,  foaming 
with  fear,  hurls  itself  headlong  at  its 
banks. 


Twilight  with  her  dusky  locks  binds 
up  the  beautiful  eyes  of  day,  whose 
head  she  pillows  on  flaming  flowers, 
—  tulip  and  poppy  and  rose.  Her 
voice  is  plaintive  as  echo's  amid  the 
rocks  where  sleeping  waves  in  dull 
green  mantles  lie  beneath  the  cav- 
erned  cliff;  or  billows  climb,  white- 
shouldered,  with  long  fingers  of 
foam. 


Here  are  passion-flowers,  purple 
of  heart,  bearing  the  cross,  as  it 
were,  of  some  stainless  flower-creed; 
acacias,  too,  spotless  as  the  angel 
innocence  of  a  babe,  and  expressing 
in  fragrance  what  the  poet  thinks  but 
cannot  say. 

10 


Nature-Notes 

The  roar  of  winter  through  the  palsied 
oaks, 

Wind-tortured  on  the  withered  fields, 
Is  as  the  sound  of  giant  chariot  spokes, 

And  clashing  of  innumerable  shields. 


I  Ve  wooed  soft  sleep  all  night, 
Clothed  in  her  mantle  white 

And  dim  as  rain; 
I  've  lain  all  night  and  wept 
For  death,  who  past  me  crept, 

To  still  this  pain, 

Heart's  pain,  but  all  in  vain. 

Why  cam'st  thou  not,  O  death? 

Why  cam'st  thou  not,  O  sleep  ? 
Death's  brother,  calm  of  breath, 

For  whom  I  keep 
Vigil  the  long  night  through : 
At  last  the  day  breaks  blue 

And  dim  the  dawn. 
Would  that  you  yet  might  hear, 
And  hearing  me,  draw  near 

Ere  night  be  gone. 


II 


Nature-Notes 

The  night  is  wild ;  the  bitter  blasts  sweep 

by; 
The  shrouded  snows  with  ghostly  fingers 

beat 
The  shuddering  casements,  and  the  candle 

flame 
Seems  fluttered  of  phantom  lips  whose 

kiss  is  death. 


Next  to  children,  birds  and  flowers 
are  the  most  beautiful  gifts  of  God. 


A  treasure  seems  concealed  here 
where  the  moss  is  damp  and  deep, 
and  the  golden  blossoms  of  the  crow 
foot  and  the  wood-sorrel  are  spilled 
like  little  yellow  coins. 

As  I  reached  up  among  the  blos 
soming  clusters  of  the  elder  copse, 
was  it  a  faun  concealed  in  the  boscage 
who  blinded  me  with  a  storm  of  white 
stars  showered  into  my  face,  or  was 
it  merely  the  wind  that  passed,  low 
laughing  to  itself,  and  whispering  of 
12 


Nature-Notes 

forgotten  things,  lost  long  ago,  and 
living  now  only  in  the  land  of  dreams 
and  song? 


With  its  helm  of  silver  and  spur  of  gold 
A  fairy  knight  is  the  toad-flax  bold, 
Who  takes  this  form  to  mortal  eyes, 
The  form  of  a  flower  of  golden  dyes. 


By  the  willow  copse  near  the  river  shore, 
Where  the  white  waves  hush  their  splash 

and  roar, 

With  an  idle  sail  and  an  idle  oar 
I  seemed  to  drift  into  other  streams, 
Borne  on  by  the  sleepy  current  of  dreams. 


O  wilding  of  the  young,  young  June, 
That  this  old  rock  holds  fast, 

Thy  day  is  done  too  soon,  too  soon, 
Too  beautiful  to  last. 


Water  lily,  do  the  Nisses  weave 
from  you  their  nuptial   raiment   of 
white?     Or    does    the    enamoured 
13 


Nature-Notes 

Necken  pluck  you  for  his  hair  to  lure 
some  maiden  mortal  to  his  arms  ?  Or 
the  mermaid  dew  you  with  her  tears 
when  lamenting  that  she  cannot  be 
redeemed?  Speak!  and  with  your 
white,  sweet  lips  now  tell  me !  I  know 
the  young  Nisses  weep  because  they 
cannot  be  saved.  Often  do  I  fancy 
them  as  seated  on  your  broad  green 
pads,  harping  and  singing  sad  songs 
of  sad  mortality  in  the  light  of  the 
setting  moon,  the  vibrant  silver  of 
their  strings  and  the  hollow  gold  of 
their  harps  sobbing  like  some  wild 
bird  in  the  silence  of  the  night.  And 
often  have  you  bent  your  pensive  head 
in  helpless  meekness,  making  yourself 
a  bud  again,  closing  the  wildness  of 
their  music  into  the  imprisoning 
petals  of  your  beautiful  bosom,  to 
give  it  forth  again  in  perfume. 


When  all  the  orchards  faded  lie, 

When  roses  drop  and  lilies  die, 

14 


Nature-Notes 

When  fall's  full  moon  makes  deep  the  sky, 

Lay  me  asleep, 
Where  breezes  bend  the  sighing  trees, 

Lay  me  asleep. 

When  all  the  dusty  autumn  day 

Is  heard  the  locust's  roundelay, 

And,  dropping  leaves,  the  tree-tops  sway 

And  wildflowers  there, 
Beneath  the  wildflowers  let  me  rest, 

The  wildflowers  there. 

Let  not  thy  hand  disturb  the  grass 
To  plant  an  alien  flower  there ; 
Let  those  wild  infants,  free  as  fair, 
Above  me,  sleeping,  bloom  and  pass, 

Forgotten  die, 
Forgotten  as  myself,  alas! 

Who  'neath  them  lie. 


Gems  and  crystals  lay  scattered 
around  him,  on  marble  the  color  of 
fire:  sea-green  chrysoprase  and  co- 
palite  from  Zanzibar;  spar  the  color 
of  amber ;  alexandrines  —  green  by 
day,  by  night  purple  or  crimson  — 
15 


Nature-Notes 

from  the  Urals;  iron,  with  red 
streaks  of  jasper  through  it;  lapis- 
lazuli  and  chrysoberyl;  fluorspar 
crystals,  white,  amethystine,  pink  and 
green;  cairngorms,  dark  and  clear 
as  an  Ethiope's  eye;  topazes,  smoky 
and  blue  and  wine-colored;  and 
heaped  high  amid  them,  like  violets 
smothered  under  the  snows  of  spring, 
great  sapphires  mingled  and  mixed 
with  the  milky  fire  of  many  opals. 


The  great  stars  wax  and  wane,  and 
the  moon  rises  over  gull-haunted 
crags,  honeycombed  with  caves,  in 
whose  dark  crevices  the  yellow  mol- 
lusks  cling  like  ingots  of  gold,  and 
upon  whose  floors  of  green  the  red 
coral  is  strewn  like  branches  of  bleed 
ing  ruby. 


I  cannot  help  admiring  the  great 
gray  hawk.     How  bold,  how  bright, 
16 


Nature-Notes 

how  swift  he  is!  Let  him  but  show 
his  shadow  and  the  shrieking  hens 
scatter,  flying  to  cover;  and  the 
blood-red  cock,  that  braggart  of  the 
barn-yard,  hides  his  proud  crest  in 
fear. 


To-day  I  found  a  flower  unknown 
to  me,  —  a  flower  white  as  a  pearl 
and  spotted  with  crimson,  as  if  some 
wild  bird,  stabbed  with  a  thorn,  had 
breathed  its  small  life  out  upon  the 
altar  of  its  loveliness. 


The  moon  is  a  lemon  petal, 
And  the  west  a  wild-rose  red, 

And  the  twilight  twines  her  dusky  locks 
With  lily-like  stars  o'erhead. 


Deep  down,  deep  down,  deep,  deep,  deep ! 
Follow  us !  come  with  us !  —  See  how  we 

leap! 
Daughters  of  ^Eger,  veiled  white  with  the 

spray, 

Beckoning,  calling  you.    Oh,  come  away! 
17 


Nature-Notes 

Children  of  Earth,  come  hither,  where  we 
Dwell  in  Ran's  realms  of  cerulean  hue; 
Where  through  her  caverns  of  green  and 

of  blue 

Echo  our  songs,  our  songs  of  the  sea, 
Dirging  the  dead,  the  sailors  who  sleep 
Deep  down,  deep  down,  deep,  deep,  deep! 
Come,  where  the  dulse  and  the  nautilus 

cling ! 
Come  away,  come  away,  here  where  we 

sing! 
Where  of  your  eyes  we  will  fashion  pale 

homes, 
Hollow,   for  pearls  and  the  glimmering 

foams. 


The  pale-haired  Waves  and  the 
white- veiled  Billows,  daughters  of 
Ran,  hurry  to  meet  ^Eger,  King  of 
Ocean,  in  his  helmet  of  terrifying 
darkness,  amid  the  roaring  reefs  and 
booming  breakers.  The  demons  of 
the  deep,  armored  and  helmeted  with 
mist,  swarm  from  the  caves  of  the 
cliffs,  howling  to  the  legions  of  the 
18 


Nature-Notes 

storm,  driving  some  vessel,  helpless 
and  tattered  of  sail,  toward  them. 


Come,  kiss  me,  beautiful  Death, 

And  lull  me  with  thy  wings ; 
Breathe  on  me  with  thy  breath, 

And  touch  my  soul  with  things 
Unknown  of  life.     Imbue 
My  body  with  thy  dew 

And  bear  me  far  away 
Into  a  deeper  dawn 
Than  lights  life's  shadowy  lawn, 

Some  fairer  break-of-day. 

Life's  sickness,  long  and  old, 

Cure  in  me ;  everything : 
Life's  greed  for  fame  and  gold 

And  love  and  suffering. 
Yea,  I  am  young  and  fair ! 
Come,  take  me  by  the  hair 

And  kiss  me  on  the  eyes  ; 
Then  bear  me  through  the  deep, 
As  thy  brother,  dream-tossed  Sleep, 

Hath  borne  me  loving-wise. 


Nature-Notes 

The  new  moon  is  the  golden  battle- 
bow  of  a  sylph;  the  evening  star  is 
the  arrow  with  which  it  pierces  the 
sunset. 


I  saw  the  Spirits  of  Day  and  of 
Darkness  meet.  Whiter  than  the 
bloom  of  crystal  were  his  cheeks ;  and 
hers,  a  hectic  flush  that  seemed  the 
reflection  of  some  inward  fire,  like  the 
scarlet  of  the  autumn  woods.  To 
grace  her  drowsy  head  he  wove  for 
her  a  chaplet  of  poppied  clouds. 


Cheerily  rang  the  bugle  horn, 

Cheerily  through  the  wood, 
For  the  ten-tined  buck  by  the  hunt  out 
worn 

At  bay  'neath  the  old  oak  stood. 


The   morn,    like    some   blear-eyed 
beggar,  came  trailing  her  tatters  in, 
streaming  with  vapor,  dark  and  dis- 
20 


Nature-Notes 

mal,   her   sodden   hair  blinding  her 
eyes. 

The  noon  was  clear;  but  now,  as 
the  sun  sinks,  the  broadening  black 
of  one  tremendous  cloud  breaks  into 
peaks,  creviced  and  ravined  and  riv- 
ered  with  burning  gold,  cascading 
and  circling  and  cleaving  their  crags 
of  storm.  The  thunder  seems  the 
sound  of  its  mighty  flowing.  Nearer 
and  nearer  the  blue  lines  of  the  rain 
shadow  and  streak  the  woods,  the 
hills,  and  the  heavens.  Now  they 
plunge,  big-dropped,  crackling,  and 
resilient,  clamoring  on  the  reverber 
ating  stones ;  so  thin  the  film  of  spray 
of  the  shattered  drops  that  the  white- 
tufted  dandelion  loses  not  one  light 
seed  in  the  shelter  of  this  rock,  where, 
like  a  host  of  fairy  helms,  the  rose 
bush  bristles  against  the  rain  a 
myriad  green  buds.  Again,  and  yet 
again,  the  thunder,  breaking,  travels 
ponderously  along  the  clouds,  the 

21 


Nature-Notes 

gray-steel  flash  of  the  lightning  like 
a  torch  before  its  rolling  chariot. 


And  now  yon  crystal  mount  of  clouds 
Silvers  with  light  as  't  were  of  wings, 

Whose    base    the    thunder's     blackness 

shrouds, 
While  to  its  summit  brightness  clings. 

Along  the  west,  flashed  through  the  dun, 
Leaping,  the  angled  lightnings  fly, 

Cleaving  the  deeps,  where  thunders  run 
Like  mountain  torrents  down  the  sky. 

Out  of  it  rises,  partly  hid, 

A  cloud,  rose-spart  all  fair  of  form, 
Like  some  sky-pointed  pyramid, 

Or  pillar  of  light,  above  the  storm. 

MAY  23,  1885 ;  6  P.  M. 


The  broad  Ohio's  darkening  stream 
Seems  now  as  still  as  liquid  glass, 

In  which  the  bridge's  pillars  dream 

Unwavering  where  the  still  waves  pass. 

22 


Nature-Notes 

The  shattered  thunder  fragments  fly; 

One  cloud  alone  makes  dark  the  west, 
Low  stooping  to  the  evening  sky, 

A  champion  with  a  burning  crest: 

Through  whose  mailed  breast  of  darkness 
dim 

And  ragged  rents  of  vapors  deep, 
The  sun  sweeps  lances,  long  and  slim, 

Of  flame  that  fall  on  vale  and  steep. 


Through  stratas  torn  of  windy  rack 
Full  flashes  now  its  crimson  star, 

Blazing  blood-red  through  stormy  black 
And  bronze  of  tempest  scattered  far. 
MAY  23,  1885  ;  6.30  P.  M. 


O  wind  of  eve,  what  spices,  steeped 
In  some  more  aromatic  clime, 

Thou  breathest,  —  as  from  islands  reaped 
Of  Summer,  over  seas  of  thyme, 

Thou  bearest  odor  on  thy  breath 

Fresh  as  the  scent  of  ocean's  waves  ; 

Cool  as  if  thou  hadst  lain  beneath, 
All  day,  in  dark  and  crystal  .caves. 
23 


Nature-Notes 

Xight  comes,  with  sparkling  fireflies 
Like  jewels  tangled  in  her  hair, 

And  all  around  her  perfumes  rise 
Of  rain,  as  't  were  dim  spirits  there. 


To-day  I  am  like  one  drifting,  drift 
ing,  and  beholding,  as  in  a  dream, 
never  nearer,  never  farther  away,  a 
line  of  dim  shore,  cliffed  and  pined 
and  cascaded,  against  the  sunset's 
luminous  seas. 


When  eve  casts  on  the  day's  dark  bier 
The  rhododendrons  of  her  light, 

And  trims  her  stars,  like  tapers  clear, 
At  feet  and  head,  how  fair  is  night. 


To-day  I  have  learned  with  Keats 
"  heart's  lightness  from  the  merri 
ment "  of  late  summer,  instead  of 
"  May,"  and  wandered  with  Shake 
speare 

"  Over  hill,  over  dale, 
Thorough  bush,  thorough  brier/' 
24 


Nature-Notes 

and  seen  many  things  that  the  ordi 
nary  eye  would  refuse  to  consider: 
the  Chickasaw  plum,  red  as  the  cheek 
of  an  Oread;  the  jellied  spawn  of  the 
frog  in  a  pond,  a  flaccid  white  blotched 
with  black  like  the  freckled  face  of 
Caliban;  mushrooms,  low  and  lean 
ing,  Puck's  own  footstools;  rocks, 
green  with  lichen,  carved  of  the  rain 
and  frost  and  heat  into  fantastic 
shapes  as  of  rebeck  and  of  rose,  fairer 
to  my  eyes  than  any  templed  frieze 
of  old  Greece,  where  the  Amazons 
and  Bacchantes  still  seem  to  live  in 
marble;  lethargic  pawpaws,  rotund 
and  jolly  as  the  bottle-belly  of 
old  Silenus ;  and  blackberry-lilies, 
freaked  and  streaked  with  rose  and 
ruby,  like  the  hood  of  Ariel ;  morning- 
glories,  azure  and  crimson  and  crys 
tal,  finely  fragile,  and  hung  up  like 
the  petticoats  of  the  fays,  the  fairies' 
own  laundry,  at  the  entrance  to  the 
wood,  that  holds  in  its  green  heart 
25 


Nature-Notes 

many  a  woodland  spring,  like  a  pure 
thought,  framed  in  with  rocks  and 
ferns,  —  the  secret  mirrors  of  glim 
mering  shapes,  the  sylvan  spirits  of 
the  solitude. 


O  my  Kentucky,  forest  old ! 

Where  Beauty  dwells,  the  stalwart  child 
Of  Love  and  Life,  where  I  behold 

The  dreams  still  glow  that  long  beguiled 

The  marble  and  the  bronze  of  men, 
Whose  Art  made  fair  the  world  of  old, 

Yet  never  held,  of  classic  ken, 

A  form  like  thine  which  I  would  mould. 

Around  me  now  I  turn  and  gaze : 

The  earth  is  green ;  the  heaven  is  clear : 

Where  smile  the  stars,  or  bloom  the  days 
More  absolutely  fair  than  here! 

Young  still  is  she,  and  fresh  as  morn, 
Standing  her  sister  States  among; 

Ah !  would  I  were  a  poet  born, 
To  sing  her  as  she  should  be  sung ! 
26 


Nature-Notes 

Bidding  her  keep  beneath  her  heel 

The    lust    for    wealth,    wrong's    iron 
crown ; 

Her  pioneer  pride,  a  shield  of  steel, 
A  buckler  that  no  foe  may  down. 

Sister  to  Hospitality ! 

Mother  of  Lincoln  and  of  Clay ! 
Make  thyself  worthy  still  to  be 

Mother  of  men  as  great  as  they. 

Mother  of  loves  and  hopes  that  dare; 

Of  dreams  and  deeds  that  sing  and  toil, 
Whose  hands  are  open  as  the  air, 

Whose  honor  none  on  earth  may  soil ! 

Let  mightier  dreams  be  thine !  arise ! 

Let  all  the  world  behold  thee  set 
A  constellation  in  the  skies 

Where  all  thy  sister  Stars  are  met ! 

1885. 


The  noisome  hollow  of  the  wood 
was  fetid  with  toadstools.  The  trees 
were  crippled  and  swollen  with 
wormy  galls,  and  twisted  like  tor 
tured  things  with  disease,  and  dis- 
27 


Nature-Notes 

torted  with  huge  fungous  growths. 
Nearby,  surrounded  with  such  trees, 
a  rushless  and  reedless  pool  lay  stag 
nant  and  sullen  in  the  sun,  where 
toads  and  newts  and  water-snakes 
abounded,  breeding  in  the  rankness 
of  its  slime  and  ooze.  The  horrible 
hillside,  rising  from  the  pool,  was 
smothered  with  thistle  and  nettle  and 
burdock  and  the  evil-smelling  jimson- 
weed;  one  wild-rose  bush  eked  out 
a  sickly  existence  amid  this  army  of 
evils,  its  stems  and  leaves  leprous  with 
the  mining  larvae,  and  labyrinthed 
with  the  web-white  trails  of  the  red 
spider.  By  the  side  of  the  pool,  in  the 
shadow  of  the  rose-bush,  like  some 
lean  yellow  spider,  or  obscene  larva, 
sat  a  man,  hideous  and  old,  with  long, 
straggly  gray  beard  and  bristling 
eyebrows,  through  which  his  small 
eyes  glittered  like  a  snake's.  Hatless 
and  perfectly  bald  he  sat,  —  a  mirth 
less,  a  cruel  smile,  repugnant  and  un- 
28 


Nature-Notes 

changing,  wreathing  his  wrinkled 
face,  —  watching  a  viper  devour  a 
toad. 


A  distant  river  glimpsed  through  deep- 
leaved  trees. 

A  field  of  fragment  flint,  blue,  gray,  and 
red. 

Rocks  overgrown  with  twigs  of  trailing 
vines 

Thick-hung  with  clusters  of  the  green 
wild-grape. 

Old  chestnut  groves  the  haunt  of  drowsy 
cows, 

Full-uddered  kine  chewing  a  sleepy  cud ; 

Or,    at   the   gate,    around    the   dripping 
trough, 

Docile  and  lowing,  waiting  the  milking- 
time. 

Lanes  where  the  wild-rose  blooms,  mur 
murous  with  bees, 

The  bumble-bee   tumbling  their   frowsy 
heads, 

Rumbling  and  raging  in  the  bell-flower's 
bells, 

Drunken    with    honey,    singing    himself 
asleep. 

29 


Nature-Notes 

Old  in  romance  a  shadowy  belt  of  woods. 
A    house,    wide-porched,    before    which 

sweeps  a  lawn 
Gray-boled  with  beeches  and  where  elder 

blooms. 
And  on  the  lawn,  whiter  of  hand  than 

milk, 
And  sweeter  of  breath  than  is  the  elder 

bloom, 
A  woman  with  a  wild-rose  in  her  hair. 


How  long  she  had  waited!  It 
seemed  ages  since  that  morn,  blood 
shot  of  eye,  arose  from  the  couch 
of  old  Tithonos,  and  she,  with 
kindred  eyes  of  sleepless  hours  and 
tears,  arose  from  Mark's  hated 
side. 

From  her  casement  she  sees  the 
castle  lake,  lilied  and  fountained,  and 
far  beyond  the  moated  walls  the  for 
ested  mountains  where  Tristram,  it 
is  whispered,  runs  naked,  a  madman 
amid  swineherds. 

Now  sinks  the  sadder  eve,  blood- 
30 


Nature-Notes 

shot  of  gaze  as  morn,  over  the 
shadowy  bier  of  day  bowing  her  mel 
ancholy  star.  And  so  o'er  their  dead 
past  her  sorrowing  fancy  bends,  lit 
with  the  light  of  tearful  eyes.  Tris 
tram  naked  and  lost  among  vile 
men  and  barren  hills  and  savage 
woods.  Why  could  she  not  die! 
Yes,  she  wrould  die!  To-morrow 
should  not  gaze  upon  her  misery,  — 
the  misery  of  Isoud  the  Beautiful! 
Why  had  God  cursed  her  with  this 
great,  this  sinful  love?  Yes,  she 
would  die.  Morn  would  find  her 
dead,  —  morn  that  she  loved,  —  the 
fresh  and  radiant  morn!  Ah!  she 
would  miss  the  oxen's  far-off  low; 
the  smell  of  early  meadows  tedded  and 
deep  with  hay;  the  cock's  clear 
clarion  call;  and  under  the  eaved 
cottage  thatch,  as  often  she  and  Tris 
tram  rode  afield,  the  twittering  of 
sparrows.  And,  sighing,  from  the 
window  slow  she  turned,  and  took 


Nature-Notes 

her   lute;   touching   its   strings,   she 
sang: 

"  No  more  for  me  shall  gray-robed  Dawn 

look  through 
Heaven's  windows  of  the  fog,  or  rain,  or 

dew, 
The  maiden  Dawn  with  eyes  of  beautiful 

blue." 


I  saw  sweet  Summer  go 
Into  a  woodland  green, 
Unto  a  sliding  stream, 

A  drowsy  water; 
With  cheeks  of  sunset  glow 
Dreaming  she  seemed  to  lean, 
Dreaming  a  wild-wood  dream, 
The  wood's  wild  daughter. 

She  seemed  to  smile,  then  wreep, 
Then  lift,  then  bow  her  head, 
Deep  with  its  golden  hair, 

Sad  as  some  maiden 
Who  loveless  falls  asleep, 
Her  eyes  to  sorrow  wed, 

Her  cheeks  as  wild  flowers  fair 
With  dewdrops  laden. 
32 


Nature-Notes 

I  heard  the  streamlet  moan ; 
I  heard  the  wood-wind  wail ; 
I  heard  the  forest  sob : 

"  Summer  is  dying !  " 
Whiter  she  lay  than  stone, 
And  down  each  dell  and  dale 
I  heard  the  wild  heart-throb 
Of  Nature  sighing :  — 


Come  back !  —  Oh,  art  thou  dead, 
Thou,  thou  my  sweetest  child? 
Come  back  with  all  thy  flowers !  "- 

But  naught  she  heeded, 
Lying  with  wild-flowered  head 
In  beauty  undefiled, 

While  'round  her  sad  the  Hours 
Bowed  down  and  pleaded. 


Then  through  the  woodland  there, 
With  ribbons  flying  gay, 

Mocking  at  Summer's  death 

With  laughter  hollow, 
Tossing  her  gipsy  hair, 
In  Romany  array, 

Autumn,  all  wild  of  breath, 

Cried,  "Follow!  follow!" 
3  33 


Nature-Notes 

Is  it  an  iron  harp  smitten  of  iron 
hands  ?  or  only  the  winter  wind  in  the 
palsied  and  ancient  oaks,  Lear-like, 
that  toss  their  hoary  arms  on  the 
withered  hills?  All  day,  all  night,  I 
hear  them,  rustling,  warring,  sigh 
ing  or  roaring  with  the  wind,  their 
few  last,  brown  leaves  beating  their 
frantic  tatters  to  and  fro.  The  sound 
of  their  shriveled  sorrow  will  not  let 
me  sleep.  An  ancient  agony  seems 
theirs,  older  than  that  which  wrings 
the  hearts  of  mortals. 


When  the  jeweled  lights  of  the  fireflies 

gleam 

In  fairy  revelry; 
When   the  waning  moon  on  the  forest 

stream 

Looks  down,  I  love  to  sit  and  dream, 
To  dream  her  again  with  me. 

We  speak  of  the  past ;  of  the  things  once 

said; 

Of  the  happiness  long  gone  by; 
34 


Nature-Notes 

While  one  blue  star  burns  bright  over 
head  :  — 

For  sweet  it  is  to  talk  with  the  dead, 
The  dead  that  do  not  die. 

With  the  dead  that  are  never  far  away, 

That  are  even  as  yonder  star, 
Whose  light  the  darkness,  ray  on  ray, 
Makes  visible,  viewless  all  the  day 

Though  shining  still  afar. 

Like  a  lonely  beautiful  flower  wild 
In  the  limitless  lands  of  space, 

That  star  is,  blossoming  undefiled ; 

More  beautiful  for  that  loneness,  mild 
It  shines  on  my  upturned  face. 

'Mid  the  fairy  lights  of  the  fireflies, 
In  the  light  of  the  waning  moon, 
Born  of  the  grief  that  never  dies, 
Into  my  eyes  gaze  her  dark  eyes, 
The  eyes  death  closed  last  June. 

And  I  hear  her  speak,  and  I  hear  her 

sigh :  — 

For,  the  dead  —  they  never  forget : 
Around  my  heart  her  white  hands  lie, 
And  she  kisses  my  face  and  asks  me  why 
My  cheeks  with  tears  are  wet. 
35 


Nature-Notes 

And  as  in  life  I  clasp  her  and  hold, 

And  meseems  it  is  no  dream  — 
That  here  we  meet,  as  oft  of  old, 
When  the  lights  of  the  fireflies'    lamps 

gleam  gold, 
In  the  trysting  place  by  the  stream. 


On  autumn  eves  in  the  beautiful 
Indian  Summer,  sitting  wrapt  in  con 
templation  of  the  sunset,  the  world 
seems  compact  of  imagination.  As 
the  fancy  bodies  forth,  thought  gives 
substance  to  things,  and  unrolling  the 
Nubian  curtains  of  night,  behold,  it 
is  not  the  sunset  that  I  see,  but  a  sea 
of  gold  dotted  with  islands  vermilion 
as  the  continents  of  Mars;  their 
bowers  and  streams  burning  rose  and 
pearl,  among  and  beside  which,  robed 
in  shadowy  silver,  sylphid  shapes 
wander,  —  spirits,  naked  and  beau 
tiful  as  stars,  flashing  flame-like 
from  the  caverns  of  purple-pinnacled 
peaks,  or  leaning  from  the  battle- 

36 


Nature-Notes 

merited  blue  of  ethereal  cities. 
Changing,  ever  changing,  now,  be 
hold,  it  is  some  mainland  of  isolated 
heaven,  moving  in  mirage,  forested 
^vith  trees  of  ruby  and  silver,  oozing 
and  weeping  gold  and  amber  into 
lakes  and  rivers  of  gold,  from 
whose  crimson  banks  bronzed  sav 
ages  launch  a  crescent  canoe. 


Sleep  came  to  me  distilling  dews 
of  dreams,  within  whose  diamond 
spheres  an  ethereal  world  lay  of 
thought  and  scene.  'Methought  that 
I  was  dead;  that  I  was  drowned: 
and,  in  a  cavern  vaster  and  bluer  than 
night,  before  a  shadowy  presence  of 
hoary  foam  and  weedy  shell,  the  pres 
ence  of  that  Ancient  of  the  Sea,  I 
stood;  the  shadow  of  whose  sceptre 
huge,  a  rib  of  cloudy  pearl,  lay  white 
upon  me.  Around  him  circled  and 
sang  the  mermaids,  chanting  that 
song  whose  mystery  fills  —  old  and 

37 


Nature-Notes 

unchanging  —  the  mouths  of  the 
murmur-haunted  shells  of  ocean. 
And,  behold !  I  heard  a  mermaid  tell 
m  song,  standing  before  that  throned 
and  ancient  presence,  how  she  had 
stolen  and  taken  on  the  beauty  and 
the  liigynggs  of  a  mortal  maiden  and 
lured  with  these  the  maiden's  lover 
to  save  her  apparently  from  the  sea, 
dragging  him  down  into  its  green 
depths.  And  at  the  Ancient's  feet 
she  laid  a  body,  —  wan- faced  with 
wide  and  ghastly  eyes.  I  looked  upon 
the  face  —  and,  lo!  the  face  was 
mine. 


Here  follows  the  synopsis  of  a 
poem  that  was  partly  completed  and 
afterwards  destroyed :  — 

The  gathering  gloom  of  the  sea; 
the  revels  of  Storm  and  Tempest;  the 
dancing  of  the  winds  with  the  daugh 
ters  of  ^ger,  the  waves,  by  the  wild 
38 


Nature-Notes 

torches  of  the  lightning.  In  the  midst 
of  it  all,  illuminated  by  the  phosphor 
escent  glow  of  mountainous  waters, 
a  barque  is  discovered,  torn  of 
sail,  driving  rudderless  towards,  and 
crashing  thunderously  upon  opposing 
cliffs  of  granite,  an  island  in  a  white 
whirl  of  booming  surf.  The  vessel, 
overwhelmed  and  engulfed,  is  borne 
down,  down,  down  into  the  wild 
waters  by  the  daughters  of  ^Eger,  to 
be  plunged  among  the  piled-up  wrecks 
in  the  treasure  caves  of  the  Sea  King. 

Dawn.  Near  the  shore  of  a  trop 
ical  island  a  youth  lies,  awaking 
slowly  from  a  swoon.  His  despair 
on  finding  himself  the  sole  survivor 
of  the  vessel,  and  cast  on  a  desert 
island.  Wearily,  in  search  of  food, 
he  wanders  inland.  Coming  upon 
what  seems  to  him  a  beautiful  lake, 
but  which  is  really  the  crater  of  an 
extinct  volcano  filled  with  the  sea  and 
39 


Nature-Notes 

connecting  with  the  sea,  he  seats  him 
self  despondently  beside  it,  lamenting 
his  fate.  A  mermaid  rises.  Appar 
ently  all  unconscious  of  his  presence 
she  proceeds  to  comb  her  hair,  richly 
auburn  as  the  auburn  seaweed,  with 
a  comb  of  pearl,  singing  a  song  all  the 
while  such  as  only  the  shells  and  the 
caves  of  the  deep  have  ever  heard 
before.  She  sings  of  the  bliss  that  is 
in  store  for  all  mortals  who,  weary 
of  life  in  the  world  of  earth  and  air, 
visit  the  world  of  waters,  and  become 
vassals  of  the  Sea  King,  deep  down 
in  his  wonder  caves  of  coral  and  of 
crystal.  In  the  ecstasy  of  the  mo 
ment,  dazed  as  it  were  by  her  chant 
ing,  the  youth  extends  her  his  hand. 
It  is  seized  instantly  in  a  grasp  that 
he  cannot  resist  even  if  he  desired 
to;  and  the  creature,  changing  her 
song  from  one  of  love-longing  to  one 
of  triumph,  drags  him,  still  unresist 
ing,  fathoms  deep,  into  the  emerald 
40 


Nature-Notes 

waters,   casting  him   senseless  upon 
the  silvery  sands  of  a  coral  cavern. 

The  green  glimmer  of  the  sea-cave, 
broken  here  and  there  with  purple 
blurs  and  shafts  of  light,  on  his  awak 
ening,  shows  him  where,  at  the  far 
end  of  the  mighty  cavern,  on  a  vast 
throne  of  piled-up,  wave-welded  gold 
'and  gems,  treasures  of  wrecked  ships, 
mingled  with  the  skulls  and  bones  of 
drowned  men,  looms  a  shadowy  pres 
ence,  weed-bearded  and  hoary  with 
shells  and  pearls,  crowned  with  a 
•crown  of  ore  set  round,  like  gems, 
with  the  eyes  of  the  drowned;  his 
sceptre,  a  broken  and  mighty  anchor 
of  iron  and  gold.  Combing  their 
long  locks  and  circling  around  him, 
many  mermaids  sing.  Vast  bulks, 
whales,  cuttlefish,  and  sea-serpents, 
amorphous  monsters  of  the  deep, 
herds  of  ocean,  pass  and  repass, 
driven  of  mermen  from  pasture  to 
41 


Nature-Notes 

pasture  of  the  underworld  of  waters. 
Storm  and  Tempest,  chained  and 
manacled  with  adamantine  chains,  lie 
restlessly  beneath  his  throne. 

Standing  before  this  terrible  pres 
ence  the  youth  begs  that  his  love, 
lost  in  the  wreck  of  yesterday,  be 
returned  to  him.  The  King  prom 
ises  that  she  will  be  restored  on  one 
condition  —  that  they  remain  his  sub 
jects  forever  beneath  the  sea.  He 
consents.  His  love  is  brought  to  him 
by  a  mermaid.  Pale  as  a  pearl  she 
stands  before  him,  her  beauty  over 
shadowing  even  the  beauty  of  the 
mermaids. 

Gathering  gradually,  far  above,  a 
muttering  is  heard;  a  calling,  as  it 
were,  to  the  over-deeps.  Storm  and 
Tempest  rise  on  their  hideous  feet, 
shaking  their  tremendous  chains. 
Mournful  echoes,  wave-like  and  wind- 
42 


Nature-Notes 

like,  sigh  through  the  glimmering 
cavern,  labyrinthed  like  a  shell:  a 
far,  wild  sound  as  of  a  voice,  sono 
rous  and  deep  as  thunder,  calling  and 
summoning  Storm  and  Tempest  to 
rise.  They  strain  at  their  huge 
gyves,  howling  to  be  set  free.  /Eger 
smites  them  mightily  down,  again 
and  yet  again,  with  his  terrible 
sceptre  of  gold  and  iron.  The  voice 
above  seems  multiplied  into  myriad 
voices,  pleading,  insistent,  importu 
nate.  Storm  and  Tempest  rend  their 
chains  asunder;  the  cavern  is  lashed 
into  furious  foam,  and  the  throne  is 
lost  in  whirling  and  overwhelming 
waters.  Storm  and  Tempest  reign 
supreme  'mid  darkness  and  foam  and 
thunder.  The  lovers  borne  on  the 
backs  of  the  billows  are  cast,  clasped 
in  each  other's  arms,  naked  and  cold 
in  death,  on  the  shores  of  the  desert 
island. 


43 


Nature-Notes 

Thus  in  the  dusk  as  ghosts  they  met, 

Culling  the  pansy-violet, 

The  violet  of  sweet  regret 

And  memory,  dim  and  dewy  wet. 


These  are  not  bees,  my  child,  but 
fairies  disguised,  seeking  the  souls  of 
little  children  in  the  cups  of  the  wild 
.flowers.  There  it  was,  closed  in  the 
bud  of  a  wild  rose,  that  they  found 
thine.  Therefore  is  it  that  thou  art 
so  fair  and  sunny  and  fragrant  and 
pink.  See,  as  this  sweet  bud  closes 
in  all  its  perfume,  so  does  thy  love 
liness  contain  thy  innocence. 


In  dimly  lighted  cloisters  of 'the  heart 
I  met  with  one  whose  face  was  like  to 

thine, 
The  ghost-face  of  the  love  that  once  1 

wronged. 


All   day   the   world   has   swooned 
with  heat.     Now,  shaking  back  his 
44 


Nature-Notes 

raven  locks  of  storm,  lit  with  the 
lightning  of  terrific  eyes,  comes  on 
the  storm. 


Amid  the  summer  fields  and  flowers, 
Let  us  be  children  for  a  day, 

Where  laughter  speeds  the  joyful  hours 
And  drives  dull  care  away. 


Keep  thou  my  face   engraven  in  thine 
heart, 

Now  that  we  part ; 
Forget  me  not ;  or  if  thou  dost  forget 

Hold  me  to  blame, 

Who  leave  thee  now,  without  one  heart's 
regret, 

Forgotten  even  thy  name. 


One  milk-white  hand  she  stretched  to  me, 
My  heart  sobbed,  "  O  beware !  " 

But  both  my  arms  reached  out  to  her 
Despite  my  soul's  despair. 


45 


1887-1890 

HER    soul,    after    a    night    of 
tears,    is    like    a    butterfly 
after  a  night  of  rain:   at 
tempting  to  fly,  little  by  little,  to  rise 
to  the  blossoms,  the  joys  above  it,  as 
the  sun,  the  warmth  of  affection,  dries 
the  moisture  on  its  wings. 


Now  that  the  dawn  is  up,  is  up, 

And  your  vine  drips  dewy  with  cup  on 

cup, 

Lean  out,  lean  out,  rare  Marguerite, 
Lean  out  of  your  window  over  the  street, 
Where  Love  stands  waiting,   sweet,   for 

you, 
Like  a  rose  'mid  roses  wet  with  dew. 


Joy,  shaking  his  chubby  sides,  in 
a  dewdrop  of  the  dawning,  laughs 
at  me  out  of  the  wild-rose  blossoms. 


Nature-Notes 

From  the  tears  of  Cypris  (Aphro 
dite),  when  she  wept  over  dead 
Adonis,  sprang  the  purple  wind- 
flower:  and  from  the  tears  of  love 
mourning  over  loss  spring  the  fair 
est  flowers  of  poesy. 


Dark  woodland  ways  of  drowsy  rustlings 
Where,  in  the  road,  the  clay-red  nodules 

lie; 
And  where  the  wild  grape,  green  with 

clusters,  swings, 
Dimmer  than  rain,  the  cool  noon  hours 

steal  by. 


The  thunder  boomed  from  cloudy  ridge 

to  ridge, 

Trailing  the  terror  of  sonorous  arms ; 
Making   the   lightning   for   his   wrath   a 

bridge, 

Planting  his  banners  on  the  heights  of 
storms. 


47 


Nature-Notes 

Who  now  hath  understood, 
Whose  art  may  ever  reach 

The  velvet  blush  of  the  bud, 
The  velvet  bloom  of  the  peach  ? 


High  up  she  glides,  high  up,  the  quartz- 
white  moon, 

Tipping  the  mountains  with  exultant  fire, 
And  in  her  light  each  pine  becomes  a  lyre, 
And  every  wind  an  Oread-whispered  tune. 


The  hope,  the  hate,  the  bitterness  of  love 
Were  in  her  eyes  that  levelly  looked  at  me, 
While  th'  rebel  blood  went  storming  up 

her  cheek. 

Devil  and  angel  was  she  in  a  breath, 
Cursing  and  kissing  me  whom  she  wished 

dead. 


Barbaric  burgonets,  heavy  with  gems, 
And  armor  wrought  of  wondrous  alchemy, 
The  Spirits  of  the  sunset  don,  and  sweep, 
Vast,  cloudy-charioted,  along  the  skies. 


Some  demon,  hidden  in  the  arras, 
shakes  its  figured  folds ;  I  seem  to  see 
48 


Nature-Notes 

his  narrow  eyes,  two  slits  of  cat-like 
flame,  glaring  —  or  is  it  the  sunset 
raying  a  rent  with  gold  ? 


Thou  hast  no  thought  for  one  who  walks 

'mid  flowers, 
Whiling    away    the    humming-bird-like 

hours, 

Nay,  nay,  not  thou ! 

Nor  think  I  now  of  thee  who  sittest  where 
The   vine   leaves   wreathe   thy   beautiful 
brow  and  hair, 

Forgotten  now. 


The  fragrance  of  a  dead  flower  fills 
this  dingle  of  the  forest  as  the  fra 
grant  memory  of  some  beautiful  girl, 
long  dead,  haunts  some  old  room. 
Wait  a  while  and  we  may  see  its  es 
sence  take  form,  as  a  spirit  takes 
form  in  the  twilight  of  a  haunted 
chamber. 

4  49 


Nature-Notes 

The  pink-blossomed  wild  mint,  hot 
and  pungent  as  the  breath  of  an 
oriental  harem,  and  the  chicory,  odor 
less  blue,  paint  with  patches  of  oppos 
ing  color  the  sparsely  treed  hillside, 
whose  thin  grass,  especially  around 
the  old  and  blackened  stumps,  is  hot 
with  the  sunlight  and  the  oily-smell 
ing  pennyroyal.  The  September 
heaven  is  a  vast,  a  fleckless  chicory 
blossom;  a  deep  and  cloudless  azure. 


The  bronze-tinted,  amber-emerald 
blur  of  shadowy  daylight  that  strikes 
upon  and  shimmers  through  the  tall, 
tufted  grass  of  the  fallow,  mingled 
with  the  gold-green  budded  masses 
of  the  goldenrod,  is  like  the  light 
that  shines  unearthly  through  some 
strange,  some  wonderful  crystal, 
smoky  gold  and  green,  cairngorm  and 
chrysoberyl:  a  vitreous,  lunar  light 
like  that,  I  imagine,  which  glimmers 
50 


Nature-Notes 

eerily  over  the  World  of  Faery,  the 
Land  of  Gnomes,  where  forever  on 
the  twilighted  hills,  swiftly  and  sound 
lessly,  whirls  and  circles  the  never- 
ending  dance. 


The  gerardia,  frailly  hung  with  its 
harebell-like  blossoms,  delicately  pink, 
seems  to  me  too  slight  a  flower  for 
the  chill  winds  of  these  October  days ; 
too  slender  a  life  to  withstand  the  icy 
dews  and  mists  that  whiten  and 
drench  these  October  nights.  It 
reminds  me  of  some  women,  who, 
slight  and  delicate,  yet  are  able  to 
stand  more  than  those  their  sisters 
who  are  stouter  and  seemingly 
stronger. 


Thou  art  to  me  the  whole  of  heaven, 
Its  sun,  its  stars,  its  golden  moon; 

Thou  art  to  me  as  music  given, 

As  song  that  holds  the  world  in  tune. 
51 


Nature-Notes 

Two  unshed  tears  made  beautiful  her  eyes 
Lighting  their  liquid  turquoise  sorrowful ; 
Yet  was  she  false,  in  spite  of  all  her  tears, 
And  with  sin  pregnant  as  the  seeds  of  hell. 


How  shall  I  describe  the  sunset  at 
which  I  am  now  looking?  The  clouds, 
broken  and  black,  are  ragged  rocks 
veined  here  and  there  with  molten 
and  running  ore,  pooling  golden  in 
glittering  crevices  and  edging  with 
ingot  flame  their  opaque  darkness. 


A  gerfalcon,  peregrine  falcon,  and 
tiercelet  were  usually  borne  with 
jesses  or  leather  thongs  about  the 
legs;  sometimes  with  a  hood  and 
bell.  They  were  then  jessed,  hooded, 
and  belled.  When  feeding  the  hawks 
were  "  at  prey."  The  lure  was  a 
bunch  of  feathers  toward  which  the 
bird  was  taught  to  return.  It  was 
the  custom  to  slip  over  the  claws  of 
52 


Nature-Notes 

the  young  birds  a  gold  or  silver 
ring  which  could  not  afterwards  be 
removed. 

Thou  art  the  wild  falcon  of  my 
heart.  An  untamed  eyas,  un jessed, 
unhooded,  rebellious.  Oh,  could  I 
but  slip  the  golden  ring,  coercing, 
binding,  compelling,  upon  thy  hand, 
then  might  I  tame  thee,  wild  falcon 
of  my  heart ! 


The  bar-lachi  is  a  loadstone  with 
which,  the  gypsies  say,  one  may  work 
charms  when  one  knows  how  to  make 
use  of  it.  Give  a  woman  a  pinch  of 
it,  grated,  in  a  glass  of  water  and  she 
will  not  be  able  to  resist  you.  Now 
will  I  make  intimates  of  the  gypsies, 
and  with  their  assistance  seek  out  this 
loadstone.  Thou  shalt  yet  come  to 
love  me  as  no  woman  has  ever  loved 
before  —  and  I  —  I  will  ruin  and  cast 
thee  aside.  May  God  have  mercy 
upon  thee,  for  I  will  have  none. 
53 


Nature-Notes 

All  day  I  have  wandered  in  the 
woods  seeing  but  two  birds ;  only  two 
birds.  Surely  these  beech  trees,  boun 
tiful  and  beautiful  granaries  of  the 
birds,  with  arms  so  full  and  so 
abundantly  bestowing,  should  lure 
myriads  into  these  woods.  Is  that 
a  fragment  of  the  western  glow? 
—  or  only  the  orange  berries  of  the 
bittersweet,  whose  pods  imprison  the 
scarlet  of  autumnal  sunsets? 


Oh,  for  the  gods  of  the  Greeks, 

The  oaks  of  Dodona ! 
For  the  white-bosomed  gods  of  the  Greeks ! 
The  gods  whom  my  fancy  seeks 

'Mid  these  woods  whence  is  blown  a 
Murmur  of  Naiad  creeks ;  — 
Here  where  this  old  oak  speaks, 
To  my  soul,  like  a  god  of  the  Greeks, 

An  oak  of  Dodona ! 


How    often    in    the    old    garden, 
grandmother's    garden    of    oldfash- 
54 


Nature-Notes 

ioned  flowers,  have  you  come  upon  a 
clove-pink,  a  clump  of  heliotrope,  a 
verbena  or  petunia,  the  pungent  per 
fume  of  which  excited  a  hunger,  as  it 
were,  a  desire  not  only  to  smell  but  to 
taste  —  to  test  its  quality  of  flavor ! 


A  languid  land  of  lazy  moons  and  stars 
I  wander  in,  watching  the  ripple  bars 
Rocking  the  hyacinths  and  nenuphars. 


The  haymakers'  sickles 

Flash  wet  on  the  leas ; 
The  wild  honey  trickles 

From  tops  of  the  trees, 
The  noon  is  a  poppy,  the  winds  are  its 
bees. 


She  whom  I  loved  too  well, 
Crowned  with  the  pomegranate  bell 
Sits  empress  now  in  Hell; 

And  there 

My  soul  sits  by  her,  kissing  her  eyes  and 
hair. 

55 


Nature-Notes 

Tell  me,  do  you  love  to  lie 

With  the  dipping  boughs  above  you, 
Where  blue  glimpses  of  the  sky 

Greet  you  like  the  eyes  that  love  you  ? 


The  dim  dawn  broke  with  driz 
zling  rain.  The  bleached  sunflower, 
weighed  heavily  with  the  wet,  rot 
ting  in  the  autumn  garden,  held  up 
by  a  morning-glory  vine,  blue  with 
blossoms  and  hung  thick  with  the 
dangling  aiglets  of  its  seeds,  re 
minded  me  of  decrepit  old  age  sup 
ported  by  sturdy  youth. 


What  gladness  of  the  young,  young  Earth 
Conceived  the  lily  and  rose? 

What  sweetness  of  her  soul's  deep  thought 
Into  their  fragrance  flows? 


Maid  Marian  rose  in  the  morn  betime, 
Looked  in  her  glass  and  hummed  a  rhyme. 
I  saw  her  walk  by  the  blossoming  bean 
Busked  in  a  gown  of  bombazine. 

56 


Nature-Notes 

Look  at  me  over  your  shoulder,  lass, 
As  you  often  look  in  your  looking-glass, 
And  trill  to  me  that  merry  rhyme, 
That  rhyme  of  love  and  the  glad  spring 
time, 

With  a  fol-de-rol-de-rey  oh! 


Oh,  could  I  only  grieve  you, 

And  grieve  you  more  and  more! 
I  who  no  more  believe  you, 

You,  falser  than  before ! 
Ah,  could  I  but  deceive  you, 

You,  whom  I  still  adore! 
Oh!  would  I  were  a  bee,  my  love, 
And  you  a  wild-rose  tree,  my  love, 
I  'd  sip  the  sweets  I  see,  my  love, 

And  be  no  longer  poor. 


When  apple  buds  are  breaking, 
And  winds  with  musk  o'erflow; 

When  wren  and  thrush  are  making 
Sweet  song  where'er  we  go, 

The  kiss  I  '11  then  be  taking 
Is  the  kiss  that  still  you  owe. 
57 


Nature-Notes 

You  who  would  not  have  me 
Now  may  not  save  me ; 
Now  you  pursue  me, 
I  will  not  woo  thee : 

Love  is  grown  cold; 

Love  is  grown  old. 


Dim  gleam  and  gloom 
And  breezy  boom 
Of  wild  bees  in  the  mustard  bloom 
Swoon  through  the  windows  of  my  room, 
As  if  the  young  Spring  trailed  her  raiment 

of  perfume 

Through   the   old   house,    rustling   from 
room  to  room. 


Along  the  west  a  cloud-wrought  crimson 

cloth 
The  curtained  sunset  draws,  to  which  one 

star 
Clings,  fluttering  silver,  like  a  glimmering 

moth, 

Pale  and  crepuscular. 

58 


Nature-Notes 

What  voice  is  that  which  wanders  in  the 

wood? 

Is  it  the  Twilight  murmuring  to  the  hills  ? 
Or,  wrapped  in  mystery  of  the  solitude, 
The  far-off  whippoorwills  ? 


With  my  whole  soul  to  the  soul  of 
her  whose  perfection  I  know  that  I 
know  not,  only  knowing  that  I  love 
her  more  than  I  do  my  own  soul, 
I  strive  to  attain  to  a  knowledge  of 
what  she  is  —  the  unattainable,  the 
divinely  beautiful. 


What  of  the  sea  when  the  storm  clouds 

thicken  ? 
What  of  the  soul  when  its  loved  hopes 

sicken  ? 

Look  in  my  eyes  and  tell  me  this,  — 
What  of  our  lives  when  our  hearts  are 

stricken, 

Given  and  taken  our  love's  last  kiss? 
59 


Nature-Notes 

Between  the  meads  of  millet 

The  soft  wind  breathes  and  blows ; 

Between  the  meads  of  millet 
I  kissed  her  mouth's  warm  rose, 

And  on  her  hand  I  placed  the  band, 
Where  all  my  future  glows. 


The  Khalif  appeared  preceded  by 
nearly  a  hundred  eunuchs  with  drawn 
swords,  and  compassed  about  with 
a  score  of  damsels,  as  they  were 
moons  about  a  sun,  holding  each  a 
lighted  flambeau;  on  each  one's 
head  glimmered  a  crown  set  with 
rubies.  Mesrour,  Afif,  and  Wesif 
went  before  him.  Shemsennehar  and 
her  damsels  rose  to  receive  him. 
Clapping  her  hands,  slaves  with 
lighted  flambeaux  and  perfumes  and 
essences  and  instruments  of  music 
entered,  and  Gheram,  the  sweetest 
lutanist  of  them  all,  smote  her  lute, 
singing  like  a  bulbul  in  the  Vale  of 
Cashmere. 

60 


Nature-Notes 

A  table  of  juniper  inlaid  with  gems 
and  pearls  was  set  with  dishes  of 
silver  full  of  all  manner  of  meats. 
The  table  removed,  they  washed 
their  hands  in  rose-water,  brought 
by  waiting  women  in  castingbottles 
of  mother-of-pearl,  from  which  they 
sprinkled  them,  perfuming  them  then 
with  aloes  and  ambergris  and  other 
perfumes  from  swinging  censers  of 
filigree  silver. 

After  which  were  placed  before 
them  dishes  of  graven  gold,  contain 
ing  all  manner  of  sherbets,  fruits,  and 
confections;  and  a  slave  brought  a 
flagon  of  cornelian  full  of  wine  of 
Shiraz.  After  which  they  retired  to 
a  chamber  vaulted  on  four  pillars, 
as  it  were  the  pavilion  of  Paradise, 
where  ten  handmaids  and  ten  singing 
women  awaited  them,  high-bosomed, 
of  an  equal  age,  with  dark  and  lan 
guorous  eyes,  cheeks  like  blood-red 
anemones,  and  skin  like  the  bloom  of 
61 


Nature-Notes 

fragrant  camomile,  joined  eyebrows, 
and  hands  stained  with  henna;  and 
these,  fair  as  houris,  played  and  sang 
and  recited  verses. 

Shemsennehar,  scarved  with  the 
luxuriance  of  her  dark  hair  and 
dressed  in  a  blue  robe  and  a  veil 
of  silk  embroidered  with  gold  and 
jewels,  about  her  waist  a  girdle  set 
with  various  kinds  of  precious  stones, 
lay  under  a  canopy  of  peacock  plumes 
on  a  couch  strewn  with  roses  of  Rock- 
nabad.  Her  words  were  more  en- 
scorcelling  than  Harout  and  Marout 
(two  fallen  angels  employed  to  tempt 
men  by  teaching  them  the  art  of 
magic).  And  the  play  of  her  glances 
more  misleading  than  Tahhout  (an 
idol  of  the  Arabs  before  Moham 
med).  And  hearkening  her  words 
and  gazing  into  her  eyes  Haroun 
reclined  near  her  on  a  mattress  of 
satin  embroidered  both  sides  with 
gold  and  quilted  with  Irak  silk; 
62 


Nature-Notes 

under  his  head  a  pillow  stuffed  with 
ostrich  down. 


Eyes  were  hers  pure  as  crystal 
drops,  and  clear  as  the  topaz-colored 
pools  of  October  forests. 


Her  eyes  were  dark  with  the  darkness  of 
hell 

And  sweet  with  the  sweetness  of  sin, 
And  I  was  a  dream  of  love,  they  tell, 

To  her  eyes  that  entered  in. 


Was  it  Demosthenes  who  said: 

"  You  write ;  the  scroll  remains : 
Think,  student,  what 's  to  come  "  ? 

Would  that  more  writers  of  the  pres 
ent  day  would  remember  this  when 
they  set  pen  to  paper,  —  myself,  for 
instance. 

63 


Nature-Notes 

Night  came,  treading  the  darkness  into 

burning  stars, 

And  in  my  heart  waking  again  old  wars. 
The  shadow  of  the  past  lay  on  my  mind's 

sick  gloom 
As  on  a  waste  the  shadow  of  a  tomb. 


Here  among  the  autumn  fields  the 
stubble,  between  the  tent-like  shocks 
of  corn,  is  strewn  with  pumpkins,  a 
golden  yellow;  as  if  some  army,  in 
conceivably  rich,  had,  before  depart 
ing,  bombarded  this  particular  spot, 
leaving  the  ground  strewn  thick  with 
great  balls  and  shells  of  gold. 


All  day  the  great,  gaunt  cactus, 
bristling  with  thorns,  blazed  its  blood- 
red  blossoms;  all  night  the  cereus, 
trailing  over  the  rocks,  orbed  its  pale 
and  fragrant  moons;  and  day  and 
night,  like  lost  souls,  we  wandered 
weeping  among  them. 
64 


Nature-Notes 

On  the  sunset's  cloudy  tide 
Triremes  of  the  storm  did  sit, 

All  their  hundred  ports  flung  wide 
With  wild  battle  lanterns  lit. 


Looking  into  her  eyes  he  said: 
"  The  materials  of  my  life,  too,  for 
the  past  few  years  would  make  mat 
ter  for  a  tragedy,  a  soul's  tragedy,  un 
speakably  sad,  sadder  even  than 
yours.  For  what  agonizes  more  than 
the  knowledge  that  you  cannot  obtain 
that  which  you  would  obtain?  That 
effort  avails  not?  That  work  is  not 
rewarded  with  success? 

"  I  often  ask  myself, 

'  Will  fortune  never  come  with  both  hands 

full, 
But  write  her  fair  words  still  in  foulest 

letters?' 

"  However,  let  me  still  go  on 
dreaming;  searching  for  the  philos 
opher's  stone  of  success :  the  powder 

5  65 


Nature-Notes 

of  projection;  elixir  vitse:  attempt 
ing  still  the  transmutation  of  mental 
metals,  thoughts  that  seemingly  have 
no  value,  through  spiritual  alembics, 
cucurbites  and  pelicans  of  language 
and  expression,  like  Albertus  Mag 
nus  of  old." 


The  buckbush  now  is  covered  with 
cranberry-colored  berries.  The  bind 
weed  with  small  blue  conical  blos 
soms.  From  the  marshes  rise  the 
seal-brown  spear-heads  of  the  cat 
tails;  and  the  herb-Robert  tinges 
with  bluish  red  the  autumn  hill 
side.  Overhead  the  morning  widens, 
pearly-pink,  like  some  gigantic  mus 
sel-shell,  slowly  opening,  showing  be 
tween  its  luminous  valves  the  sun  like 
a  huge  red  pearl. 


How  correct  is  the  fire  of  the  stars ; 
the  crow  of  a  cock;  the  color  and  the 
66 


Nature-Notes 

shape  of  a  flower.  How  accurate 
Nature  is.  How  punctual  in  timing 
the  appearance  of  a  flower  or  a  star. 
As  regular  as  the  beating  of  her  own 
great  heart. 


Poetry  is  the  rhythmical  expres 
sion  of  the  relation  of  the  ideal,  which 
is  the  beautiful,  to  the  actual.  And 
here  in  the  April  woods  what  poetry 
addresses  me  in  voices  of  the  wind! 
What  does  it  say,  rushing  and  roar 
ing  by?  tossing  and  tumbling,  until 
distracted,  the  heads  of  the  towering 
trees  on  the  Indiana  hilltops?  within 
their  fibrous  hearts  the  responding 
timbre  of  a  mighty  music.  Voices  of 
jubilation,  of  acclaim,  epic,  elemental, 
shouting  their  message  over  the  bar 
riers  of  the  world,  bidding  it  prepare 
itself  for  the  advent  of  Loveliness ;  to 
doff  its  ashen-colored  garb  of  peni 
tence  and  don  rejoicing  vestments  of 
67 


Nature-Notes 

azure  and  gold.  Shawms,  cymbals 
and  sackbuts  unite  in  the  voices  to 
produce  one  voice,  loud,  imperious, 
sonorous  as  some  million-stringed  in 
strument,  to  which  the  forests  yield 
themselves  up,  rocking  to  and  fro, 
like  wild  fanatics  filled  with  the 
frenzy  of  some  mad  god  whose  rites 
they  celebrate,  Corybantic,  the  sere 
leaves  of  last  year  whirling  and  swirl 
ing  around  and  around  them  like  rent 
and  riven  raiment. 

How  much  happier  are  the  little 
things,  the  lowly  things  of  life,  how 
much  more  secure  from  the  buffet- 
ings  of  fate  than  are  the  mighty,  the 
aspiring  things!  This  wildflower, 
for  instance;  slight,  unassuming,  and 
safe,  entirely  unaffected,  fluttering 
delicately  and  tranquilly  at  the  foot 
of  this  huge  oak  that  the  same 
wind,  which  merely  bowed  the 
bluet's  head,  a  moment  ago  crash- 
ingly  overthrew. 

68 


Nature-Notes 

I  heard  the  trees  in  the  silence  of 
the  spring  night  whispering,  mur 
muring  among  themselves,  gossiping 
of  the  radiant  garments,  bud  and 
blossom  and  leaf,  which  they  were 
soon  to  don.  And  then  I  heard  them 
quietly  laughing,  —  as  old  people 
might,  telling  quaint  stories  of  their 
little  ones,  —  and  speaking  gently, 
crooningly  to  the  tiny  wildflowers 
nestling  at  their  feet:  flowers  which 
the  singing  of  the  sap  in  their  old 
hearts  and  roots  had  awakened,  ere 
the  rain  and  wind  had  called  to  them 
and  the  sunbeam  had  pointed  them  a 
place  wherein  to  rise:  blossoms  that 
even  now  were  gazing  wonderingly 
around  them,  or  at  the  stars  thro' 
their  branches,  as  listening  children 
might  at  the  eyes  of  their  loving 
parents  telling  them  legends  and  tales 
of  faery. 


Nature-Notes 

Alas !  how  hearts  go  groping 
For  that  which  may  not  be ! 
Braving  the  gates  where  hoping, 

'T  is  written,  none  shall  see ! 
In  ways  of  blind  endeavor 
And  darkness  of  the  never 
The  gates  are  closed  once  open ; 
The  end  is  misery. 


Why  is  it  thus  with  me  as  days  go  by  ? 

Oh,  why,  oh,  why? 

Less  frequent  is  the  smile,  more  often  now 
the  sigh. 


Swift  as  the  poplar,  with  its  lordly  height, 
To  clothe  itself  in  green  when  Springtime 

calls, 

When  forests  still  are  bare,  is  hope  to  come 
Into  our  lives  when  love  has  said  "  pre 
pare." 


From  the  hilltop  here  in  Kentucky, 
under  the  Aprilian  blue  of  a  perfect 
afternoon,  a  great  blur  of  glimmer 
ing  amber,  gold  tinged  with  auburn, 
70 


Nature-Notes 

shows  me  where  the  budded  but  still 
blossomless  black-haw  stands  covered 
with  young  leaves ;  as  tenderly  tinted 
as  the  festal  raiment  of  some  sylvan 
of  the  woods,  or  haunter  of  the  val 
leys:  some  Dryad  or  Auloniad,  who 
has  come  forth,  slenderly  and  deli 
cately,  from  her  tree  or  bower  to  greet 
and  meet  the  young-eyed  Year. 

Or  is  it  the  Rapunzel  Spring  her 
self,  delicate  and  divine,  odorous  of 
fable,  who  has  let  down  her  tawny 
hair,  its  magnificent  mane  of  abun 
dant  and  beautiful  gold,  for  her  lover, 
the  Wind,  to  clasp,  to  overwhelm  him 
self  with;  to  kiss  and  climb  by  into 
her  enchanted  tower,  there  to  deliver 
himself  over  forever  to  her  love? 


Wild-ginger,  under  these  leafing 
wahoos,  almost  covers  the  April-wet 
hillside  with  its  low,  lush  leaves;  its 
belled,  or  chaliced  blossom,  huddled 
in  the  fork  of  its  succulent  stem, 


Nature-Notes 

divided  into  three  pointed  lobes,  is 
the  color  of  the  nearby  wake-robin,  a 
clear,  brown,  port-wine  red. 

The  silvern  and  golden  flowers  of 
the  adder's-tongue  star  the  brier- 
buried  and  bushy  banks  of  the  creeks. 
What  is  more  beautiful  than  a  great 
bed  of  these  dog's-tooth  violets  with 
their  gracefully  bending  and  curving- 
petaled  blossoms,  pearl  and  topaz 
colored,  fairly  illuminating,  as  with 
fairy  lamps,  the  sodden  and  turfless 
soil  of  the  creek-rivage !  These  are 
gems  indeed  that  any  one  can  have 
for  the  stooping  and  gathering.  And 
their  spiritual  value,  if  not  their  ma 
terial,  is,  at  least  to  me,  even  greater 
than  that  of  real  pearls  and  topazes. 


Apple  blossoms  and  bees;  pelting 
petals;  honeyed  hummings.  What 
glory !  what  memorable  music !  what 
beauty  redolent  of  immortal  mem 
ories!  A  mountain  of  blooms,  large 
72 


Nature-Notes 

and  white,  delicately  tinged  with  pink, 
with  occasional  clusters  of  rosy,  puck 
ered  buds,  waving  in  and  perfuming 
the  balmy  wind  of  April.  How  this 
old  tree,  with  its  million  blossoms  and 
its  murmuring  bees,  brings  back  viv 
idly  the  memory  of  my  boyhood 
passed  among  the  Indiana  hills! 
Every  falling  petal,  every  bee  mur 
mur  is  fraught  with  the  fragrance 
of  remembered  happiness.  And  now, 
drowned  in  its  deeps  of  blossoming 
and  exultant  snow,  a  catbird  goes 
mad  with  music.  —  Or  is  it  the  voice 
of  my  lost  dreams  singing  to  me  in 
words  that  only  my  soul  can  under 
stand  ?  And  there  where,  —  whis 
pers  of  pearl,  little  silvery  sighs  of 
happiness  breathed  by  the  pure  lips 
of  Spring,  —  the  dog's-tooth  violets 
blur  gray  the  creek  banks,  I  seem  to 
see  a  presence  passing,  dimly,  a  bright 
shadow  with  windflowers  in  its  hair. 
The  materialized  memory  of  a  spring 

73 


Nature-Notes 

long  gone;  a  spring  of  my  earliest 
youth;  with  cheeks  and  mouth  a 
brier-rose  red,  her  eyes  a  pansy-violet 
azure,  singing  a  song  of  home. 

Or  there,  asway  on  a  carpet  of 
celandine  gold  and  bluebell  blue,  now 
with  a  "  wick,  wick,  wick,"  of  a  flicker 
fiddle;  now  with  a  "cheer,  cheer, 
cheer,"  of  a  redbird  reed,  I  seem  to 
see  and  hear  her,  that  long-lost 
Spring,  playing  an  air  to  which  the 
chipmunks  dance  —  the  little  ground- 
squirrels  their  blood  a-beat  with  the 
intoxication  of  springtime. 

She  is  the  same  as  she  was  when, 
with  whippoorwill  words,  she  lured 
and  led  my  boyhood  into  her  twilight 
woods  at  dewy  dusk;  her  forests 
filled  with  faery  fancies ;  to  a  seques 
tered  and  vine-embowered  spot, 
where  the  first  Mayapples  unfolded 
their  miniature  moons  under  the 
young  May  moon;  and  amid  whose 
parasols  and  blossoms  she  seated  me 

74 


Nature-Notes 

in  the  whippoorwill-haunted  hush, 
and,  to  the  music  of  the  cricket,  told 
me  wonder  stories,  elfin  tales,  my 
heart  shall  never  forget. 


On  a  low  fern-based  rock,  —  mossy 
shrine  of  the  wood-god  who  has  this 
particular  forest  under  his  protec 
tion, —  before  which,  like  a  cande 
labrum  before  an  altar,  burning  with 
many  silken  flames  of  greenish  gold, 
a  young  hickory  lifted  up  its  hun 
dred  pointed  leaf-sheaths,  and  a  paw 
paw  shook  its  sacramental  bells  of 
bronze,  —  I  laid  an  offering  of  wild 
flowers  this  last  day  of  April:  — 
Mayapples,  with  their  milky  moons; 
trilliums,  stainless  of  star  and  whiter 
than  alabaster;  the  belled  ivory  of 
the  bellwort;  the  lavender  and  lilac 
bonnets  of  the  iris ;  the  hooded  green 
and  mulberry-purple  of  the  Indian- 
turnip  ;  the  disced  amber  and  gold  of 
the  crowfoot  and  the  hawkweed;  the 
75 


Nature-Notes 

hollow  sapphire  of  the  polemonium 
or  Jacob' s-ladder ;  the  bugled  crim 
son  of  the  columbine ;  the  crystal  and 
azure  of  the  wild  dwarf  larkspur; 
and  the  constellated  loveliness  of  a 
myriad  bluets,  starflowers,  and  bird's- 
foot  violets. 


Let  us  follow  this  path,  that  leads 
us  past  wild  crabapple  trees  , —  huge 
bouquets  of  shell-pink  blooms, — 
through  wild  strawberries  starring 
their  blossoms  under  budded  black 
berry  briers,  to  a  heron-haunted 
creek,  a  ribbon  of  silver  winding 
around  a  woodland  where  the  cuckoo, 
the  chat,  and  the  thrush  keep  up  a 
continual  calling;  and  at  whose  en 
trance  the  haw-tree  and  dogwood,  in 
full  flower,  stand  like  white-stoled 
worshippers  before  the  entrance  to  a 
great  green  temple,  —  a  temple  whose 
floor  is  marbled  with  green  and  mo- 
saiced  with  pearl  and  gold  and  azure ; 
76 


Nature-Notes 

oxalis,  ranunculus,  and  houstonia; 
and  lamped  with  the  veined  feldspar 
of  the  wild  geranium  and  the  silken 
sapphire  of  the  spidenvort. 


While  lone  I  stood 

Within  the  wood 
I  heard  the  feet  of  Silence  edge 
And  stumble  on  a  rocky  ledge  — 
A  sound  of  waters  foaming  down 
Between    mossed    banks    of    green    and 

brown  : 

And  through  the  trees,  that  leaned  to  listen, 
I  caught  a  momentary  glisten 
Of  her  white  limbs  all  interwound 
With  white  confusion  of  her  gown, 
That  made  a  dim  and  glimmering  sound. 


What  a  queer  bird  is  the  whippoor- 
will  !  that  has,  or  seems  to  have,  no 
sense  of  concealment,  so  far  as  its 
nest  is  concerned.  Perhaps  this  is 
because  it  usually  selects  the  most 
unfrequented  parts  of  the  forest  to 
77 


Nature-Notes 

brood  in.  To-day  I  startled  one  from 
its  hover.  Soundlessly  it  flew  be 
fore  me,  clothed  like  the  night  in 
russet  and  sable,  a  drowsy  flutter 
of  wings,  trying  to  lure  me  away 
from  the  two  cream-white  eggs.  — 
the  customary  number. — brown-and- 
blue-spotted,  lying  where  I  could  not 
help  but  see  them,  without  the  sign 
of  a  nest,  on  the  dead  oak  leaves 
right  before  me,  partly  protected  by 
the  dead  branch  of  a  tree, 

A  little  farther  on,  in  a  different 
part  of  the  forest,  at  the  foot  of  a 
huge  beech,  sat  a  great,  dark  brown 
owl,  a  hawk-like  owl;  round-headed 
and  round-eyed ;  a  day  owL  Almost 
as  silently  as  the  whippoorwill  it  arose 
at  my  approach,  disappearing,  downy 
of  flight,  dark  and  swift,  into  the 
green  and  gray  of  the  deep  beeches, 
like  some  impish  evil. 


iSgi-igoo 

WHERE  the  spring  is  sunken 
in  the  damp  gray  rock, 
mossy  with  moisture,  the 
wild  larkspur,  petunia,  morning- 
glory  and  wild  potato  bloom.  And 
there,  at  the  end  of  the  path,  like  a 
terra-cotta-colored  torch,  the  pleu 
risy-root  flames ;  the  snake-root,  with 
its  evil-smelling  flowers,  like  long 
white  candles,  seems  to  wish  to  light 
me  further  on ;  on  to  where  the  but 
ternut  and  water-beech  embrace  one 
another  above  the  stream,  like  lovers 
parted  by  some  petty  spite,  locking 
arms  above  its  gossip,  in  the  foliage 
sanctity  of  their  hearts  nesting  a 
cooing  dove. 

The    small    gray-blue    heron,    the 
fly-up-the-creek,  frightened  from  its 
79 


Nature-Notes 

fishing,  rises  gracefully  from  its  pool, 
winging  and  fading,  shadow-like,  a 
soft  and  silent  flight,  far  down  the 
creek. 

In  a  swirl  of  butterflies,  mottled 
maroon,  pied  yellow  and  gray,  and 
velvety  gold  and  seal,  I  pass  along 
the  creek,  where,  startled  by  my  foot 
steps,  the  water-snake  slides  sound 
less,  like  a  crooked  root,  from  the 
shore;  and  the  silvery  minnows,  as 
with  one  impulse,  twinkle  instantly 
and  swiftly  out  of  sight. 

The  tufted  titmouse  fusses  in  the 
buckeye  tree  near  by;  and  the  shad 
ows  of  the  slender  willow  leaves  ap 
pear,  imaged  in  the  shallow  pool,  to 
be  the  silverless  phantoms  of  a  min 
now-school.  Here  the  blossoming 
horsemint  and  teasel  blur  with  pink 
the  weedy  hillside.  Along  the  creek 
banks  and  amid  the  pebbles  and  rocks 
of  its  dry  watercourse  the  black 
berry-lilies  mass  themselves,  a  mot- 
80 


Nature-Notes 

tied  ruddy  red,  reflected  here  and 
there  in  the  lazy-running  water; 
lazier  than  the  small  white  summer 
clouds  that  float  above,  or  the  bril 
liant  dragon-flies  that  haunt  its  banks. 


A  vagabond  foot  and  a  vagabond  road, 
And  the  love  in  our  hearts  our  only  load. 

An  easy  foot  in  an  easy  shoe, 
And  who  is  it  cares  where  the  road  leads 
to? 

An  old  plank  gate  at  a  lane's  green  end, 
And  who  is  it  cares  where  the  lane  may 
wend? 

A  bowl  of  milk  and  a  bit  of  bread, 
Who  richer  fares  or  is  better  fed  ? 

A  crust,  a  spring  and  a  blackberry, 
And  who  is  it  sups  as  well  as  we  ? 

A  hut  by  the  road  and  a  girl  to  kiss, 
What  man  hath  greater  joy  than  this  ? 
6  81 


Nature-Notes 


a  ptOonr  of  Ifiyv 
\Vliosc  bed  9  sweeter  ABB  tins,  I  say " 


are  deeper  r  whose  sleep  as 


IDC  cawing"  of  crows  reminds  IDC 
of  the  carping  of  ciilics;  whether 
tbeir  voices  be  raised  in  praise  or 
blame  it  is  aH  die  same  —  a  lot  of 
mnr  that  fcads  to  ^yritwig  The 
world  jogs  along  jttst  as  usual  in  spite 
OK  "what  ttfaey  c*w?^*Oft"  tDdr  own  nu~ 
and  in  a  fittk  whfle  all  their 
ImgolicM;  Ac  workL  like 
the  woods  around,  has  heard  hut  has 
it  heeded?  It  wffl  judge  for  itself 
later  on  when  their  cawings  hare 

It-lrrl. 


Art  is  a  virgin  whose  children  are 
all  immambtrhr  coocehred  and  born. 


Nature-Notes 

Along  the  St.  John's  River  soft 
maples,  rnddily  tufted,  made  bright 
the  sombre  banks,  showing  only  occa 
sionally  a  pine  or  palmetto  amid  the 
wilderness  of  express  trees  trailing 
with  moss.  Cherokee  roses  too  rarely 
ran  a  rambling  riot  of  great  white 
blossoms  aroond  the  hole  of  scene 
live-oak.  The  water,  of  a  solkn 
blackness,  had  no  nwre  carrent  than 
a  pood  or  lagoon.  The  furrow  of  oar 
Iktk  steamer  fell  away  from  the  stern 
in  a  sort  of  yeasty,  smoky-topaz  foam. 
Water-lilies'  laid*  long  bonks  of  blos 
soms  along  either  shore.  An  affiga- 
tor,  a  sqnamocts  and  ittgpA  balk, 
slowly  crossed  a  lily-pa ven  inkt. 

Lflies:  more  lilies;  internmiat- 
m^lv  at  times  they  seemed  to  spread 
over  the  entire  river  a  doth  of  gold. 
Hemlocks,  cypresses,  and  black-gams 
seemed  to  welcome  us  with  die 
waving  ot  funereal  banners,  long 
streamers  of  Spanish  moss,  as  we 


Nature-Notes 

entered  the  Ocklawaha,  passing  a 
leaky-looking  rowboat  with  an  old 
negro  in  it,  picturesque  among  the 
yellow  lilies  of  a  lagoon.  Lilies; 
lilies,  holding  up  everywhere  innum 
erable  fists  tight  full  of  gold.  The 
dogwood  and  jessamine,  in  full  bloom, 
diversified  with  white  and  gold  the 
seemingly  impenetrable  woods.  Here 
and  there  on  the  high-lifted,  desolate 
branches  of  twisted  trees,  looking 
like  the  huge  nests  of  unknown  birds 
of  prey,  great  clumps  and  masses  of 
mistletoe  were  seen.  The  Ever 
glades  could  hardly  look  more  for 
bidding  than  the  forested  swamp  that 
stretched  out  on  either  side  of  our 
boat. 

One  would  imagine  that  the  Ock 
lawaha  was  entirely  destitute  of  cur 
rent,  until,  gazing  downward,  deep 
into  the  clear  but  dark-brown  depths, 
one  beheld,  at  intervals,  the  long 
water-grasses,  growing  on  its  bottom, 

84 


Nature-Notes 

streaming  green,  —  streaks  of  cop 
peras  inclosed  in  crystal.  In  its 
placid,  mirror-like  depths  the  skies 
and  woods  are  so  exactly  reproduced 
that  you  are  often  deceived  as  to 
which  is  the  real  and  which  is  the 
reflection.  Bittern  and  heron  and 
egret  haunt  here;  often  winging 
slowly  over  the  ivied  and  creepered 
solitudes.  And  startled  by  our  ap 
proach  crane  and  kingfisher  swing 
along  its  surface,  beneath  which 
swim  their  images  amid  the  green 
streaks  of  grass,  that  reminds  one  of 
the  streaming  hair  of  kelpies.  Hell- 
divers  or  didappers  rise,  flash  away, 
and  the  teal,  with  their  instant  wings, 
skip  the  water  into  ripples.  At  twi 
light  the  limpkins  begin  their  wild 
wailing,  plaintive  as  that  of  a  lost 
child;  and  like  a  vulture,  silent  and 
solitary,  on  the  dead  limb  of  a  tree 
the  water-turkey  sits,  sombre  above 
the  uncurling,  ghostly  spider-lilies, 
85 


Nature-Notes 

hanging,  long  strips  of  white,  among 
the  cypress-knees. 

In  the  darkness,  before  the  coming 
of  the  moon,  we  seemed  passing  be 
tween  immaterial  walls  of  phantom 
forest,  clothed  in  the  fluttering  cere 
ments  of  the  dead,  the  dark  wild- 
trailing  moss  —  or  was  it  the  waving 
of  spectral  arms,  ghostly  strouds  and 
mantles  of  dead  Seminoles?  Enor 
mous  hands,  taloned  and  crooked  of 
finger,  seemed  clutching  up  at  us  out 
of  the  unseen  waters,  or  impended, 
threateningly,  above,  eager  and  wait 
ing  an  opportunity  to  snatch  us  away 
into  the  phantom  forest;  nearly  al 
ways  they  resolved  themselves  into 
the  gaunt  and  twisted  limbs  of  lean 
ing  trees. 

The  moon  is  up.  A  flare  of  pine- 
knots  is  blazing  in  a  huge  iron  sconce 
at  the  top  of  the  pilot-house.  The 
deck-hands  are  gathered  together  at 
the  bow  of  the  Okeehumkee  with 
86 


Nature-Notes 

banjo  and  guitar.  The  forest  echoes 
awaken  to  the  strains  of  negro 
melodies :  "  In  de  mornin'  by  de 
bright  light";  "  Did  not  old  Pharaoh 
git  lost  in  dat  Red  Sea  ";  "  Way  up 
de  Ocklawaha  " ;  "  Carve  dat  pos 
sum,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

From  an  almost  sleepless  night  in 
my  narrow  cabin,  having  been  kept 
awake  by  the  clattering  and  crashing 
of  branches  that  raked  every  now 
and  then  the  sides  of  the  Okeehumkee 
in  its  passage  up  the  stream,  I  arose 
to  find  the  morning  massed  and 
streaming  with  mist;  the  forests 
seemingly  more  spectral-looking 
through  the  banks  and  flying  shreds 
of  vapor  than  they  were  last  night. 
Suddenly  the  sun  rose  scattering  with 
level  crimson  lances,  wildly  glorious, 
the  routed  and  ribboned  fog.  We  had 
left  the  Ocklawaha  and  were  steam 
ing  up  Silver  Spring  Run.  Drenched 
with  the  mist  and  dew  the  moss  hung 
87 


Nature-Notes 

motionless  from  the  trees,  smoky- 
brown  and  dripping.  The  butterflies 
that  had  taken  shelter  upon  our  decks 
during  the  night  were  too  weighed 
down  with  the  wet  to  lift  their  wings. 
The  water  of  Silver  Spring  Run  is 
perfectly  pellucid;  to  the  depth  of 
some  forty  odd  feet  everything  is 
plainly  visible.  Garfish,  bream,  black- 
bass,  pickerel,  and  turtle  are  dis 
cernible  swimming  slowly  or  swiftly 
away  from  our  advancing  keel.  At 
Silver  Spring  itself  we  gaze  down,  as 
we  pass  over  it,  upon  a  mighty  ledge 
of  rock,  magnified  by  the  refraction 
of  the  water  probably,  forty-eight 
feet  from  the  surface;  it  seems  to 
be,  with  its  great  rift,  the  entrance 
to  some  vast  cavern  that  disgorges 
an  underground  river  which  fur 
nishes  the  water  of  this  great  spring. 
At  the  depth  of  eighty-four  feet  the 
bottom  is  perfectly  visible  and  the 
ripples  of  a  rowboat,  oaring  and 
88 


Nature-Notes 

breaking  the  surface,  are  magnified 
a  hundredfold  on  the  rocks  below, 
irisated  into  wonderful  colors:  em 
erald  green  and  ultramarine  blue, 
blurring  and  streaking  the  bottom; 
the  effect  being  the  same  as  that  of 
some  glimmering  submarine  scene 
presented  in  pantomime  on  the  stage. 
The  clear,  round  lake,  hemmed  in 
as  far  as  the  eye  can  see  with  forests 
of  cypress,  black-gum,  live-oak,  pine 
and  palmetto,  solemn-hung  with  their 
gray  moss,  is  a  weird  setting  for  its 
mysterious  crystal.  Here  and  there 
the  cypresses  and  black-gums,  swollen 
by  the  water,  bulge  out  abruptly,  the 
tree-trunk  seemingly  supported  on  a 
black  pedestal.  The  cypress-knees, 
extinguisher-shaped  (like  so  many 
giant  clubs  thrust  knot  downward 
into  the  water),  bristled  along  the 
shore;  and  the  forest  towering  above 
them,  silent  and  sad,  was  like  some 
strange  woodland  turned  to  stone. 
89 


Nature-Notes 

Amid  it  all,  as  I  sat  dreaming 
alone  by  the  shore,  and  the  sunset 
built  up  vast  teocallis  and  temples  of 
copper-colored  cloud  in  the  west,  I 
felt  as  one  might  feel  who,  be 
yond  the  condor-haunted  Cordilleras, 
comes  suddenly  upon  some  ancient 
and  dead  city  of  Yucatan,  Honduras, 
or  Mexico  :  Mitla,  Uxmal,  Palenque, 
or  Copan,  lost  in  stupendous  and  im 
penetrable  forests  of  the  ceiba,  mi 
mosa,  and  yucca,  trailing  enormous 
creepers  and  huge  cacti,  and  wild  and 
wonderful  lianas,  cataracts  of  gor 
geous  crimson  flowers. 

THE  OCKLAWAHA  AND  SILVER  SPRING,  FLA., 

FEB.,  1893. 


I  have  talked  of  the  curculio,  the 
codling-moth,  the  rust  of  the  oats 
and  the  smut  of  the  corn  with  the 
farmers  until  the  better  part  of  the 
morning  is  past.  At  last  I  am  by 
myself  again,  on  the  hilltop  among 
90 


Nature-Notes 

the  creepered  trees  and  rocks.  The 
sunlight  strikes  athwart  the  dew  and 
every  cedar  glitters  as  if  clothed  in 
silver-linked  mail.  The  bob-white 
calls  to  his  mate  through  the  fresh 
ness  and  the  dew  of  the  deep  August 
morning;  and  where  the  mist  trails 
its  fleecy  folds  from  hilltop  to  hill 
top,  the  wild  hawk,  soaring,  screams 
and  screams.  The  birds  are  out 
doing  each  other  in  vocal  gymnas 
tics;  and  now  the  sound  of  the  wind 
in  the  leagues  of  trees  is  like  the 
breaking  of  far  waters  on  a  shelly 
shore. 


The  tops  of  the  oaks  nod,  ruddy  in 
the  sun,  like  Celtic  kings  giving  audi 
ence  to  wild  tribes,  —  the  winds, — 
their  gold-red  beards  and  hair  quiver 
ing  with  wrath.  The  tree-toad's 
guttural  fluting  is  like  the  blowing 
of  bubbles  of  cloudy  crystal  through 
hollow  silver;  the  lonely  sound  seems 


Nature-Notes 

more  suitable  to  the  melancholy  of 
the  evening  than  to  the  mirth  of  the 
morning.  The  day,  in  spite  of  its 
clouds,  promises  to  be  fair. 


As,  all  distraught,  with  dark,  neglected 

hair 

She  lifted  up  her  face  to  mine  I  saw 
The  moon-white  glory  of  her  soul,  and 

love 
Smiled  sadly  at  me  from  her  shadowy 

eyes. 


Now  is  the  sunset's  presence  fra 
grant  and  beautiful  as  the  presence 
of  some  young  Greek:  his  feet 
anointed  with  Megallian  oils,  his 
bosom  and  arms  odorous  of  the  es 
sence  of  thyme;  his  eyebrows  and 
hair  sweet  with  marjoram;  his  knees 
and  neck  with  oil  of  wild  ivy:  robed 
in  a  robe  of  murex-dye,  smelling 
sweeter  than  the  costly  ointment  of 
Peron,  he  walks  the  twilight  world, 
92 


V     Or   THC 

UNIVERSITY 


OF 


Nature-Notes 

supple  and  gleaming  of  limb,  sowing 
the  earth  with  immaterial  blossoms, 
ground-thyme,  crocus,  hyacinth,  heli- 
chryse  and  amaracus. 


In  the  "  Deipnosophists "  Athen- 
seus  speaks  thus :  "  Formerly,  to  be 
popular  with  the  vulgar  was  reck 
oned  a  certain  sign  of  a  want  of  real 
skill:  on  which  account  Asopodorus, 
the  Phliasian,  when  some  flute-player 
was  being  much  applauded,  while 
he  himself  was  remaining  in  the 
hyposcenium  (a  certain  part  of  the 
theatre),  said,  '  What  is  all  this? 
the  man  has  evidently  committed 
some  great  blunder/  " 

How  true  is  this  of  a  great  many 
of  our  suddenly  successful  writers, 
whose  works  meet  with  such  over 
whelming  applause  from  the  public, 
which  is  the  vulgar,  and  reach  such 
phenomenal  sales.  I  never  hear  of 
93 


Nature-Notes 

a  new  book  that  everybody  praises 
and  recommends  but  that  I  am 
straightway  suspicious  of  its  literary 
merit  and  avoid  reading  it,  feeling 
sure  that  the  author  has  probably 
"  committed  some  great  blunder." 


I  have  read  somewhere  of  the  heli- 
chryse,  which  some  one,  is  it  Athen- 
seus?  says  is  a  flower  like  the  lotus. 
Also  of  the  amaracus,  a  purple  lily, 
which  is  called  by  some  people  the 
sampsychus:  I  have  never  seen  the 
helichryse  nor  the  amaracus,  but 
neither,  I  will  venture  to  say,  could 
compare  in  splendid  beauty  with  this 
trumpet-flower,  glowing  scarlet,  and 
this  Turk's-cap  lily,  streaked  with 
crimson,  growing  here  in  our  un- 
classic  fields. 

The  Greeks  claimed  that  the  most 
fragrant  roses  grew  in  Cyrene;  on 
which  account  the  perfumes  said  to 
94 


Nature-Notes 

have  been  made  there  surpassed  all 
others  in  sweetness;  this  was  said  to 
be  true  also  of  the  perfumes  made 
from  violets  and  other  flowers  grown 
there  which  were  most  pure  and 
heavenly;  and,  above  all,  the  fra 
grance  of  the  crocus  which  was  said 
to  be  indescribably  sweet  Now  I 
will  venture  again  to  say  that  no 
Cyrenian  rose  could  smell  sweeter 
than  the  brier-rose  I  have  found 
blooming  on  our  own  hills  and  in  our 
own  valleys,  by  the  streamside  and 
the  roadside,  in  May  and  June.  And 
no  violet  and  no  crocus  of  Greece  ever 
attained  to  such  elusive  and  subtle 
sublimity  of  scent  as  does  our  wild 
crabapple  blossom. 


Is  not  the  poet's  inspiration  like 

that  fabulous  Fountain  of  Elusides, 

spoken  of  in  old  chronicles,   whose 

miraculous  waters,  it  is  said,  rose  to 

9S 


Nature-Notes 

the  sound  of  music,  and,  the  music 
ceasing,  sank  again? 


The  milkweeds  nod  their  Rip- Van-Winkle 

heads 
When  Autumn  blows ;  and  in  the  snoring 

flue 
The  chill  wind  sleeps.    All  night  it  seems 

to  me 

A  goblin  gnome,  a  Lob  Lie-by-the-Fire, 
Sits  humped  upon  the  hob  whining  of  cold, 
Or  whistling  to  the  flame  to  keep  him 

warm. 


These  misty  forests  of  white  and 
black  and  red  and  chestnut  oak  that 
drop  their  acorns  around  me  as  I  go, 
and  fill  the  air  with  sad  fragrance 
premonitory  of  their  decay,  bring  to 
my  mind,  I  know  not  why,  the  As 
syrian  dwarf-oak  that  is  said  to 
secrete  manna,  from  whose  branches 
it  is  gathered  in  quantities.  During 
foggy  weather  the  manna  is  distilled 
96 


Nature-Notes 

on  the  rocks  and  even  on  the  sand, 
as  here  the  acorns,  agate-brown  and 
black,  are  showered  over  the  ways 
—  mast  that  is  manna  to  many 
things,  birds  and  beasts  and,  per 
haps,  men. 


The  sunrise  this  morning  was 
yellow  as  Median  marble,  the  marble 
of  Tabriz  which  is  so  transparent, 
it  is  said,  that  it  may  be  cut  thin  and 
used  instead  of  window  glass.  Grad 
ually  the  heaven  above  grew  blue, 
blue  as  Phoenician  lapis  lazuli,  while 
below  it  the  horizon  deepened  into 
red,  crimson  as  Choaspian  agate, 
fading  upwards  into  amethystine 
purple  and  smaragdine  green,  lordly 
colors  through  which  the  sun  ad 
vanced  like  a  mighty  monarch,  re 
splendent  in  burning  mail  of  gold, 
pacing  the  glittering  lines  and  bar 
baric  splendors  of  his  court. 
7  97 


Nature-Notes 

In  the  Garden  of  Skulls  and  Serpents, 

By  a  tower  of  gold, 
Stood  a  woman,  fair  as  fire, 

Wonderful  to  behold. 


Webs  of  starry  flame  she  wove  there, 

Webs  of  moony  fire. 
Snares  to  seize  the  souls  of  mortals, 

Slav  them  with  desire. 


The  pure  precision  of  a  star,  a  flower, 
The  punctuality  of  their  return 
And  order  of  their  coming  fill  my  soul 
With  the  astonishment  which  mortals  feel 
For  Bible  beauties  that  no  man  explains. 


I  have  listened  long  unto  the  promises, 
The  confidences  of  the  trees  ;  and  now, 
Continuous  with  the  trees,  a  stream  ex 

pands, 

Expounding  all  the  woods'  dim  mysteries 
In  ripple  rhymes  sung  softly  to  itself. 


Nature-Notes 

I  saw  the  Spring-  go  by,  her  mouth  a  thread 

Of  wild-rose  red, 
Blowing  a  golden  oat ; 
And  now,  a  crown  of  barley  on  her  head, 
The  Summer  comes,  a  poppy  at  her  throat. 


As  Lais  obtained  ascendency  over 
the  cynical  spirit  of  Diogenes,  so  does 
the  moonlight,  brightly  beautiful, 
overcome  the  retired  and  moody 
darkness  of  this  glade.  And,  like 
Phryne,  —  whose  charms  exposed  be 
fore  the  judges  saved  her  from  sen 
tence  of  death,  and  whose  beauty 
inspired  the  sculptor  Praxiteles  when 
he  modelled  the  Venus  of  Knidos, 
also  Apelles  when  he  painted  Venus 
rising  from  the  sea,  —  so  does  the 
naked  moon  fill  with  wondering  awe 
the  bosoms  of  the  hills  and  streams, 
mastering  and  compelling  them  with 
her  beauty. 


99 


Nature-Notes 

An  Eldorado  of  vales  and  peaks, 
That  the  cloudy  ore  of  the  sunset  streaks, 
Is  the  Eldorado  my  fancy  seeks : 
Where  the  gold  lies  thick  that  they  feign 

to  find,  — 

That  never  in  earthly  mine  was  mined,  — 
In  the  airy  caves  of  the  dsemonkind. 


A  rune  of  glimmer  and  a  scrawl  of  light, 
Printing  with  gold  the  black-bound  page 

of  night, 
The  glow-worm  is,  making  its  blackness 

bright. 


The  deep  blue  spike  of  the  great  lobelia 
glows 

Beside  the  cardinal-flower  along  the  ways 

Where  Summer  goes  stripping  the  way 
side  rose 

Of  all  its  blooms,  and  plumping  red  its 
hips  ; 

Her  grasshopper  gown  of  rustling  golds 
and  grays 

Bristling  with  burrs  caught  from  the  tre 
foil's  sprays, 

And  from  the  thorny  marigold's  tick-like 
tips. 

100 


Nature-Notes 

Now  do  the  katydids,  leaf-crickets 
and  weed-insects  of  the  dusk,  that 
stridulate  the  long  night  through, 
celebrate  their  Erotidia,  or  festivals 
of  love.  Or  are  they  elves  disguised, 
insect-like,  in  long  close  coats  of 
green  and  gray,  that,  by  the  light  of 
the  harvest-moon,  hold  wild  revelry? 
chanting,  as  at  their  banquets  the 
Greeks,  a  cricket-scholium  —  a  song 
which  went  the  rounds;  sung  to  the 
lyre  by  the  guests,  one  after  the  other, 
each  guest  holding  a  myrtle  branch 
which  he  passed  on  to  any  one  he 
chose. 


No  lovelier,  no  wittier  women  lived 
than  the  courtesans  of  Greece:  wit 
ness  Nesera,  Cottina,  the  celebrated 
Lacedaemonian  courtesan,  and  the 
Athenian  courtesan  by  name  Mania, 
whose  beauty  was  as  great  as  that  of 
Phryne  and  whose  wit  and  repartee 
equalled  that  of  Aspasia.  They  were 
101 


Nature-Notes 

women  appreciative  of  the  best  in  art 
and  literature.  Therefore  it  is  no 
wonder  that  they  were  sought  out  by, 
and  became  the  powerful  mistresses 
of,  the  greatest  philosophers,  poets, 
and  statesmen  of  Greece. 


Watching  the  fireflies  to-night, 
flashing  hither  and  thither,  up  and 
down  the  darkness,  reminds  me  of 
some  elfin  dance  with  torches:  some 
Bacchic  or  Pyrrhic  dance  of  the 
fairies:  a  dance  like  that  danced  by 
the  worshippers  of  Bacchus  in  an 
cient  Greece,  wherein  the  dancers 
carried  thyrsi  and  torches,  and  moved 
to  the  most  beautiful  airs.  Perhaps 
it  is  really  and  truly  the  Pyrrhic  dance 
of  Elfland  at  which  I  am  looking. 
This,  however,  is  a  respectable,  not 
an  indecorous  dance  —  who  could 
conceive  the  fairies  engaging  in  any 
but  a  respectable  dance?  No;  such 
102 


Nature-Notes 

indecent  dances  as  the  Pyrrhic  or 
Codax  dances  are  not  for  them ;  this 
dance  is  like  that,  wild  and  yet  re 
strained,  which  the  Greeks  called  the 
Emmelia. 


I  wonder  if  the  summer  insects, 
such  as  the  leaf-cricket  and  the  green 
grig  and  grasshopper,  with  their 
stinging  music,  did  not  first  suggest 
to  some  one  the  thought  of  inventing 
a  stringed  instrument;  we  are  all 
acquainted  with  the  myth  of  how  the 
lyre  came  to  be  fashioned  by  Mercury 
out  of  the  shell  of  a  tortoise,  but  no 
one,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  told 
us  how  the  other  stringed  instru 
ments  used  by  the  ancients  came 
to  be  invented.  Perhaps  it  was  a 
grasshopper  that  suggested  to  the 
Parthians  the  making  of  the  sam- 
buca,  a  musical  instrument  of  four 
strings;  and  the  cricket  that  sug 
gested  the  magadis  and  pectis,  both 
103 


Nature-Notes 

played  without  a  plectrum.  Terpan- 
der,  although  they  say  he  invented 
the  barbitos  to  correspond  to,  and 
answer  the  pectis  in  use  among  the 
Lydians,  may  have  got  his  idea  from 
a  long-legged  grig  or  leaf-cricket 
singing  merrily  in  the  summer  grass 
by  some  Arcadian  stream. 


This  is  the  month  when  the  wild- 
sage  silvers  green  in  the  shade  of 
elder-brake  and  trumpet-vine;  the 
wild-parsnip  goldens  its  flowering 
ulms;  and  the  moth-mullein  discs 
its  pedicels  with  blossoming  yellow 
or  white,  tinged  delicately  with  purple 
or  crimson. 


The  aster  does  not  always  post 
pone  until  late  summer  or  early  fall 
its  time  of  flowering,  for  weaving  its 
intricate  lacework  of  blossoming 
stars :  I  have  found  both  the  pink  and 
104 


Nature-Notes 

white  aster  blooming  in  the  middle 
of  June  in  retired  and  moist  places 
of  brushy  underwoods  and  hollows, 
lost  in  a  riot  of  weedy  vervain, 
overwhelming  everything  with  their 
numberless  blue  and  white  terminal 
tongues  of  blossoms. 


Aug.  4,  1894,  7.15  P.M.;  twi 
light.  —  The  west  is  a  deep  orange 
red  above  which  and  within  which 
silvers  the  crescent  moon;  against 
the  sky's  gamboge  the  trees  are  out 
lined  greenish  black;  the  wooded 
valleys,  of  a  dusky  damson  purple, 
look  hazy  through  a  thin  veil 
of  blue  wood-smoke  of  burning 
brush.  A  bob-white  whistles  and 
a  vesper-sparrow,  plaintively,  pen 
sively,  warbles  a  moment  in  a  heavily 
foliaged  locust  tree;  its  mate  replies 
in  a  tree  near  by;  and  in  the  orchard 
another  takes  up  the  song  and  passes 
it  on  to  one  who  responds  in  the 
105 


Nature-Notes 

vineyard;   the  dusk  seems  holier  for 
their  singing. 

The  green  leaf-cricket,  the  climb 
ing-cricket,  moves  its  fragile  wings  of 
transparent  shell,  making  a  delicate 
tremolo  sound,  soothing  and  dreamily 
melancholy,  like  a  dim  reed,  ghostly 
and  golden,  blown  by  a  weed-hidden 
fairy.  The  west  fades  into  ashen  and 
rose  and  night  comes  starry  and  cool 
and  calm. 


I  gazed  upon  the  wasted  lips  of  Want 
Within  a  city  haunt 
Of  vice  and  sin, 
And  thought  of  the  green,  the  abundant 

fields  beyond 

The  sordid  streets,  whither  Want  could 
not  win, 

The  sick  and  fond; 
And,  where  the  white-top  like  dim  streaks 

of  steam 
Wavers  its  whiteness,  lay  him  down  and 

dream, 

Lapped  in  the  murmur  of  a  meadowed 
stream. 

1 06 


Nature-Notes 

As  a  dead  leaf  is  lifted  by  no  dis 
cernible  wind,  but  seemingly  by  its 
own  volition,  in  the  forests  of  spring, 
stayed  and  swayed  and  suspended  for 
a  moment  over  its  silent  and  withered 
companions,  and  then  dropped  sud 
denly,  instantly,  precipitately  upon 
them  and  mingled  indistinguishably 
with  them :  so  is  the  fancy,  that  yes 
terday  was  alive  and  green  and  fair, 
taken  up  subconsciously,  by  no  per 
ceptible  wind  of  thought,  and  poised 
and  considered  for  a  moment  and 
then  dropped  silently  among  the 
dead  fancies  of  many  dead  days  of 
dreaming. 


Clouds  suddenly  obscured  the  sky, 
spreading  smoke-like  through  the 
calm  of  heaven  as  black  soil,  loose 
and  loamy,  dropped  from  a  precipi 
tate  hand,  discolors,  extending  out 
ward  from  the  central  disturbance, 
107 


Nature-Notes 

a  pool  of  perfectly  clear  water,  cloud 
ing  it  circularly. 


April  is  here,  smelling  spicily  as 
does  the  young  gold  green  of  the 
gummy  velvet  sheaths  that  hold  the 
leaves  of  the  hickory  trees;  her  hair 
gay  with  apple  blossoms,  odorous  of 
rain,  she  comes,  a  sunny  and  showery 
presence,  down  the  orchard  ways. 
Here  she  walks  under  the  shadowy 
cedars,  pressing  with  warm  fingers 
the  distending  and  opening  cones,  dis 
tinctly  heard,  snap  on  snap,  like  the 
clapping  of  the  great  beak  of  some 
unknown  and  invisible  bird.  I  notice 
that  this  year  (April,  1898)  the 
bumble-bees  are  more  numerous 
among  the  apple  blossoms  than  are 
the  honey-bees.  Query:  Do  the 
bumble-bees  appear  earlier  than  the 
honey-bees? 

The  bumble-bee  is  no  respecter  of 
108 


Nature-Notes 

the  virgin  bud  of  the  apple  tree: 
forcibly  he  takes  possession  of  her; 
pushing  the  tender  petals  violently 
aside  with  his  fore  feet  he  rudely 
thrusts  his  head  into  the  very 
heart  of  the  nectary,  sucking  up 
its  inmost  sweet.  A  ravisher  of 
beauty  and  of  innocence,  he  com 
mits  many  rapes,  thousands  of  them, 
daily. 

You  can  smell  the  wild  rose  in  the 
leaf  even  before  the  bush  is  budded: 
it  is  a  racy,  juice-suggestive  smell 
like  that  of  a  ripe  June-apple. 


May  6th,  1898.  Snowing  hard; 
the  worst  snow  storm  we  have  had 
this  year.  I  cannot  help  thinking 
how  bland  the  wind  blew  —  was  it 
only  yesterday  ?  —  and  how  like  a 
fickle  woman  the  month  has  already 
proven  herself:  now  warm,  now  cold; 
now  inviting,  now  repelling,  but  al- 
109 


Nature-Notes 

ways    sweet    of    voice    even    when 
coldest. 

"The  devil  hath  not  in  all  his  quiver's 

choice 
An  arrow  for  the  heart  like  a  sweet  voice." 


Green  in  the  circle  of  contingent  trees 
The  water  lies  wherein  the  new  leaf  sees 
Its  twinkling  shadow.    Through  the  bos 
cage  leers 

The  beast-like  visage  with  the  satyr  smile 
Of  what  has  followed  me  this  many  a  mile, 
Earth's  lust,  hot-eyed,  with  horrible  mouth 
and  ears. 


I  imagine  the  Bible  of  the  Fairies 
to  be  a  book  whose  pages  are  the 
gossamer  wings,  pale,  delicate,  trans 
parent  green,  of  the  climbing  leaf- 
cricket;  its  binding,  of  moth  wings 
elaborately  tooled  and  mottled  with 
azure  and  gray  and  gold  edged  with 
seal-brown  or  ruby ;  the  letters  of  its 
text  minute  as  the  tracks  of  ants, 
no 


Nature-Notes 

High  up,  in  inaccessible  reaches  of 
violet  and  rose,  the  morning's  rever 
berated  fires  dazzle  the  eyes  like  the 
burning  points  of  a  myriad  sylphide 
spears. 


On  every  side  the  roses  rise 

In  crimson  insolence  and  pride; 

And  near  them,  steeped  in  lordly  dyes, 

That  to  the  roses'  are  allied, 

Of  transitory  purple  and  pearl, 

The  poppies'  delicate  flowers  uncurl. 


The    shadows    where    no    light    looked 

through, 

Ephemeral  sapphire,  lay  in  pools  of  blue; 
And  there  the  spendthrift  flowers  flung 
Their  petaled  gold ;  and  many  a  tongue 
Of  many  a  wild  bird  of  their  beauty  sung. 


With  all  my  heart  I  deem  it  no  great  folly 
To  be  in  love  with  gentle  Melancholy ; 

with  her,  who,  to  my  thinking,  ex 
presses    all   that    is    most    sad,    and 
in 


Nature-Notes 

therefore  most  pensively  beautiful,  in 
Nature.  The  winds  and  the  waters 
and  the  leaves,  the  moon  and  the  stars 
and  the  flowers  are  eloquent  of  her. 
Her  sad  loveliness  addresses  us  in 
the  dewy  voice  of  the  hyla,  and  the 
crepuscular,  the  tenebrious  tones  of 
the  leaf -cricket :  like  Wordsworth's 
poet, 

"  She  is  retired  as  noontide  dew 
Or  fountain  in  a  noonday  grove, 
And  you  must  love  her  ere  to  you 
She  will  seem  worthy  of  your  love." 


The  inviolable  and  unapproachable 
presence  of  a  spirit  seems  regarding 
me  from  the  sunset;  clothed  in  stu 
pendous  colors  it  towers,  addressing 
in  words  of  violet  and  rose  the  earth 
and  the  heavens,  inaudible  harmonies 
of  fire,  hushing  the  universe  to  sleep. 


Wordsworth  never  beheld  our  little 
bluet,  the  houstonia  c<zrulea.    I  never 
112 


Nature-Notes 

see  it,  among  the  earliest  of  our 
spring  wildflowers,  with  its  starry 
eyes  of  watchet-blue  looking  up  at 
me  from  the  forest  floor,  shyly  as  if 
afraid  of  its  own  loveliness,  that  I  do 
not  think  of  those  beautiful  lines  of 
his:  — 

"  So  fair,  so  sweet,  withal  so  sensitive  :  — 
Would  that  the  little  flowers  were  born 

to  live 
Conscious  of  half  the  pleasure  that  they 

give. 
That  to  this  mountain  daisy's  self  were 

known 
The  beauty  of  its  star-shaped  shadow 

thrown 
On  the  smooth  surface  of  this  naked 

stone." 


What  bird  is  that  that  sings  so  long? 

To  hear  whose  song 
Each  bashful  bud  opens  its  rosy  ear, 
Leaning  it  near. 

While  here, 
8  113 


Nature-Notes 

Under  the  blossoming  button-tree, 

I  seem  to  see 

A  shape,  a  presence  look  out  at  me ; 
And,  clothed  in  raiment  of  white  and  gray, 
Pass  on  like  the  Spirit  of  Easter  Day. 


Not  for  things  which  we  know,  but 
for  things  which  we  feel  should  we 
value  life  most. 


The  sunset  lets  its  heavy  curtains  down 
Of  thunder-purple  orphreyed   deep  with 

gold 

Around  the  cloudy-builded  couch  of  Day, 
Canopied  with  the  star-wrought  blue  of 

heaven. 


These  are  the  cups  of  Comus,w 
These  tulips  pranked  with  flame, 

The  tulip-burning  twilight  fills 
With  wine  of  wondrous  name. 


Yea  ;  death  behind  her,  gazing  through  her 

hair  ; 

Death  in  her  lips  and  in  her  body  fair  ; 
114 


Nature-Notes 

Ten  hundred  deaths  to  him  whose  heart 

is  hers, 

Who  kisses  her  —  death,   darkness,   and 
despair. 


Dr.  Johnson  says :  —  "  Women 
have  a  perpetual  envy  of  our  vices; 
they  are  less  vicious  than  we,  not 
from  choice,  but  because  we  restrict 
them;  they  are  the  slaves  of  order 
and  fashion;  their  virtue  is  of  more 
consequence  to  us  than  our  own,  so 
far  as  concerns  this  world." 

This  lumbering  cloud,  lazily  drift 
ing  through  the  literary  firmament  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  occasionally 
shed  great  truths  from  its  bounteous 
bulk,  rain-like,  on  the  surrounding 
land,  giving  new  life  to  its  parsi 
monious  and  ungrateful  growths, 
swelling  every  little  river  that  it 
touched  upon,  —  such  as  Boswell,  — 
with  a  portion  of  its  own  importance. 


Nature-Notes 

The   blue   wild    hyssop,    with    its   dewy 

mouth,  — 

Cool,  moist,  and  heavenly  'mid  the  pink- 
bloomed  mint 
Along  the  shallow  creek,  shrunk  with  the 

drouth,  — 

Seen  suddenly  thus,  seems,  swift,  an  in 
stant's  hint 
Of  some  dim  being  —  one,  whom,  still  in 

vain, 

I  follow  where  their  many  delicate  ears 
The  purple  beard's-tongue  and  lobelia  lean 
Sidewise  to  silence,  listening  for  the  rain 
Tiptoeing  the  trees  through  which   she 

flees  again  — 

The  presence  that  my  soul  adores  yet  fears, 
The  Loveliness  my  eyes  have  never  seen. 


Here  bloomed  the  black-eyed  Su 
san  and  the  white  wild  carrot,  with 
its  resinous  odor,  beneath  the  Chick- 
asaw  plum  tree  whose  crimson  fruit 
strewed,  like  blood-red  agates,  scat 
tered  by  the  hand  of  August,  the  dry 
bed  of  the  creek,  or  glimpsed,  like  a 
dryad's  lips,  a  luscious  red,  through 
116 


Nature-Notes 

the  intricate  green  of  the  boughs 
above.  There  the  vervain  with  its 
ragged  witch-wisps  of  weedy  blos 
soms  nodded  at  me  from  the  dusty 
roadside  together  with  the  hot  yellow 
eyes  of  the  wild  sunflowers  and 
daisies.  Seated  upon  a  stone  I  said 
to  myself,  —  "  Love  is  the  wizard's 
circle  which  circumscribes  life;  inside 
it,  all  the  joys  of  Earth  and  Paradise : 
outside  it,  and  beyond  it,  death  and 
darkness  and  hell." 


Drab-colored  seed  pods  of  the  autumn 

hung, 
Like    beggar's    tatters,    on    the    red-bud 

boughs : 
Around  the  old,  old  house  there  was  no 

sound, 
No  song  or  sound,  save  on  the  rotting 

shed, 
The  dim  old  shed,  a  dove  made  plaintive 

moan. 
In   rapt  clairvoyance  gray  the  shadows 

lay 

117 


Nature-Notes 

Around  it  seeing  many  things  unseen 
Of  mortal  eyes,  strange  things  now  dead 

and  gone, 
Ghosts  of  the  sometime  gladness  dwelling 

there, 
Spectres  of  age  and  youth,  and  sorrows 

old, 

Older  than  all  the  oldness  sleeping  there 
'Mid  clemencies  of  days  forever  gone. 


A  poet's  soul 's  unconscious  of  its  dreams 
As  is  the  night  unconscious  of  its  stars, 
As  is  the  heaven  of  all  its  clouds  and 

winds, 
And   Earth,   retentive   Earth,   of  all   its 

flowers. 


The  bright  half  moon,  a  boat  pearl- 
white, 
Floats  down  the  cloud-canals  of  night. 

The  ghostly  blue  of  the  night  sky 
seen  through  the  white  wrack-rem 
nants  of  the  storm  is  the  blue  of  bluet 
blossoms  showing  their  dim  patches 
and  streaks  through  the  white  petals 
dropped  by  the  blossoming  dogwoods. 
118 


Nature-Notes 

How  wonderfully  bright  the  stars 
are  after  storm!  it  is  with  them  too 
as  it  is  with  the  flowers,  as  if  they 
had  been  washed  clean.  And,  like 
the  flowers,  the  reserved  wildflowers, 
they  seem  pregnant  with  some  mes 
sage,  some  secret  which  they  are 
yearning  to  impart,  that  they  would 
divulge  but  dare  not. 

When  earth  forgets  one  flower  that  comes 

with  spring, 
And  heaven  one  star  that  beautifies  the 

night, 
Shall  I  forget  that  song  I  heard  her  sing. 


An  old  Spanish  saying  is  that  "  a 
kiss  without  a  moustache  is  like  an 
egg  without  salt." 

And  what  says  Boccaccio?  — 

"  Lips  for  kissing  forfeit  no  favor ; 
Nay,  they  renew  as  the  moon  doth  ever." 

So  must  the  bees  and  the  butter 
flies  think  who  are  never  weary  of 
119 


Nature-Notes 

saluting  the  flowers;  and  love  par 
ticularly  to  kiss,  if  I  am  not  mis 
taken,  those  that  are  bearded  of 
lip,  such  as  the  larkspur,  the  snap 
dragon,  the  hairy  beard's-tongue, 
toad-flax,  and  hyssop,  iris,  foxglove 
and  catkin,  whose  mouths  are  elfin 
horns  of  honey,  or  vats  of  fairy 
wine. 


What  pictures  on  wood,  painted  by 
Tuscan  artists,  taken  from  the  shrines 
and  altars  of  old  churches,  predellas 
and  triptychs,  or  three-folding  tab 
lets,  shaped  quaintly  in  Gothic  peaks, 
gleaming  with  backgrounds  of  an 
tique  gold,  could  compare  in  coloring 
with  the  illuminated  painting  of  a 
butterfly's  wings?  such  a  butterfly  as 
I  beheld  to-day  —  cobalt  and  crimson 
and  gold,  bronze  and  purple  and 
black,  wing-wide  on  a  corymb  of 
blossoming  weed. 

120 


Nature-Notes 

All  night  it  rained.    Now  in  the  dawn 
The  purple-berried  cedars  stand 
Weighed  down  with  wet  the  sun  strikes 
through. 

Last  night,  July  the  I3th,  1897, 
at  8:30  o'clock,  a  phenomenon  was 
presented  to  my  gaze  such  as  it  was 
never  my  fortune  to  see  before  and, 
I  suppose,  will  never  be  my  fortune 
to  see  again.  A  moon-bow,  a  lunar 
rainbow,  of  gigantic  proportions, 
arched  its  phantom  reflection  over 
the  not  distant  wood,  stretching 
dimly  away  to  the  north  and  south, 
outlining  its  spectral  colors  against 
the  showering  clouds  of  the  west  as 
the  moon,  broad  and  bright  and  full, 
rose  in  the  unclouded  east. 

This  morning  I  find  the  forest 
dotted  with  bulbous  and  spongy 
fungi;  strange  things,  fluted  and 
lobed,  ooze  from  decaying  trunks  of 
trees  or  from  old  stumps  and  logs, 
rusted  and  rotted  red;  yellow  and 
121 


Nature-Notes 

buttery-looking  things  on  which  the 
slug  and  snail  feed.  And  every 
where,  everywhere  the  dotting  domes 
and  parasols  and  cushions  of  the 
toadstools,  pink-ribbed  or  white,  on 
thin  or  squat  stems,  make  bright 
spots  of  color  —  crimson,  green,  gray, 
fawn,  white,  and  salmon.  To-night 
perhaps,  if  I  watch  and  am  favored 
as  is  the  slug  that  slimes  the  cobweb 
stretched  across  the  hollow  stump,  or 
the  firefly,  that  flits  its  lamp  search- 
ingly  hither  and  thither,  I,  too,  may 
see  them  heave  their  white  roofs 
through  the  ferns  like  goblin  huts, 
an  elfin  city. 


I  love  to  linger  o'er  the  roseless  rose 
When  hips  are  ripe  and  candle-flames  they 

seem, 

Orange  and  red,  lit  in  the  Autumn's  honor, 
Who  softly  goes, 
Her  ruby  crown  upon  her, 
Adown  the  ways  where  vines  like  banners 
stream. 

122 


Nature-Notes 

The  auroral  scent  of  morning  lilies  blows 
Mixed  with  nocturnal  perfumes  of  the  rose 
Around  the  Dawn  whose  state  invades  the 

sky 

Trailing  wild  raiment  of  sidereal  dye, 
Holding  her  torch  of  spheric  fire  high. 


Its  banks  clumped  with  the  hot 
bronze  and  yellow  of  the  black-eyed 
Susans  and  the  rocket-like  stars  of 
the  towering  elecampane,  not  far 
from  where  I  am  sitting,  beneath  a 
bower,  as  it  were,  of  berry-clustered 
bittersweet,  already  turning  orange, 
and  huge,  yellow- white  blossom- 
plumes  of  the  Hercules-club,  is  a 
lily-leafed  pond,  the  quivering  crystal 
of  which  is  wrinkled  and  circled  into 
frantic  lines  by  the  swift,  mad  move 
ments  of  a  swarm  of  gunmetal-col- 
ored  waterbugs,  whose  dull-shining 
backs  are  boat-shaped.  Watching 
them,  curious  to  learn  the  reason  for 
their  Corybantic  antics,  I  hear  the 
123 


Nature-Notes 

sudden  cat-like  squeak  of  a  young 
frog  that  has  just  taken  leave  of  its 
tadpole  part  and  plunged  into  the 
water  to  rejoice  with  its  fellows,  or 
brag  to  the  great  frog,  with  the  big, 
bass  voice,  like  the  twang  of  a  bow 
string,  of  how  very  soon  he  will  out- 
sing  him  by  the  light  of  the  August 
moon.  This,  probably,  it  was  that 
drove  the  waterbugs  into  such  dem 
onstrations  of  delight :  —  or  was  it 
the  flashing  by  of  that  living  shuttle 
of  checkered  white  and  black,  that 
aerial  weaver  of  weird  dances,  the 
dragon-fly,  whose  erratic  revolutions 
inspired  them  with  a  reciprocal  desire 
to  imitate  on  the  water  the  lines  and 
curves  it  wove  overhead? 


August  ist.    Heavy,  heaven-purple 
plumes  of  the  hyssop  azure  the  shad 
owy  tangles  of  the  briered,  sumached 
and  sassafrassed  fallows;  and  where 
124 


Nature-Notes 

the  sunlight  dusts  down  glimmering 
gold,  mottling  the  cool  gloom  of  the 
woods,  their  massed  blossoms  seem 
imprisoned  patches  of  sky,  vaguely 
violet,  bringing  the  heart  into  the 
mouth  with  the  suddenness  of  their 
beauty,  and,  —  as  the  spot  of  day 
light  at  the  far  end  of  a  cavern,  after 
hours  of  darkness,  —  holding  the  eye 
and  lifting  the  soul  with  hope. 

The  last  of  the  ox-eyed  daisies  are 
now  blooming,  —  as  clean  and  white 
looking  as  their  sisters  were  that 
hailed  the  advent  of  June,  —  scat 
tered  among  the  black-eyed  Susans 
and  the  wild  coreopsis  that  spread  a 
cloth  of  gold  for  the  feet  of  August, 
who  comes  clad  in  the  royal  purple 
of  the  iron-weed,  a  starry  crown  of 
the  rudbeckia,  —  an  Ariadne  coronal, 
—  upon  her  auburn  hair ;  within 
whose  front  the  rubied  aigret  of  a 
cardinal-flower  flames;  in  her  hand 
a  great  plume  of  goldenrod,  a  torch 
125 


Nature-Notes 

lighting  her  way;  her  gown,  embroi 
dered  with  the  rosy  moons  of  the 
marsh-mallow,  rustling  locust-loud, 
or  rasping  grasshopper-like  as  she 
goes,  an  elecampane  blossom  glowing 
at  her  throat. 


From  the  inexhaustible  fountains 
of  the  stars,  ancient,  unalterable, 
the  night  pours  out  her  radiance  as 
of  old;  and  in  their  light  I  go  the 
old  trodden  way  of  trees  as  oft  I 
went  when,  in  my  boyhood's  days, 
I  walked  with  song  and  story. 


The  salmon-colored  broomsedge 
seems  sunset  fire  fallen  on  the  au 
tumn  fields.  The  puddles  left  of  last 
night's  rain  gleam  like  mirrors  of 
polished  steel.  Among  the  awns  and 
beards  of  the  bristling  gray  grasses 
the  wind  hisses  angrily,  and  a  soli 
tary  climbing  cricket  mournfully 
moves  its  wings,  making  a  quavering 
126 


Nature-Notes 

and  reedy  music.  The  sun  slopes 
slowly  towards  his  setting,  and  there, 
in  a  black  cloud,  suddenly  an  eye 
seems  to  shape  itself,  oblong,  sinister, 
narrowed  to  a  line  of  flame,  glaring 
as  a  fiend  might  from  behind  dark 
folds  of  haunted  arras. 


As  I  went  riding  toward  the  sea, 
By  field  and  hill  and  flower  and  tree, 
The  thickets  parted  and  suddenly 
A  satyr's  face  laughed  out  at  me. 


Now  is  the  ageratum,  or  mist- 
flower,  seen  blooming,  blue  as  the  late 
September  heavens,  everywhere,  by 
the  wayside,  in  the  woods,  and  along 
the  banks  of  autumn  waters.  It  is 
as  if  one  were  walking  amid  fallen 
and  scattered  strips  and  streaks  and 
patches  of  azure  heaven.  Their  blos 
soms  populate  with  blue,  rank  on 
rank,  especially  the  banks  of  the 
127 


Nature-Notes 

slowly-sliding  streams ;  crowding 
each  other  into  the  water  in  order  to 
gaze  upon  their  own  reflected  loveli 
ness,  leaning  far  over,  careless  of 
drowning,  only  to  get  a  glimpse  of 
themselves.  Here  and  there,  scat 
tered  among  them,  glow  the  sturdy 
stalks  of  the  great  lobelia,  torches  of 
feldspar  fire. 


I  walked  by  the  golden-tessellated 
streams  of  fall;  waters,  scattered 
with  the  slender  leaves  of  the  willow, 
whose  currents  slowly  carry  down  to 
stirless  pools  patens  of  gold  and 
bronze,  arranging  them  in  wonderful 
mosaics.  Here  and  there  along  their 
banks,  from  a  wilderness  of  blossom 
ing  goldenrod,  the  reddening  su 
machs  thrust  up  heavy,  brick-red 
plumes  of  seeds,  frosted  and  glisten 
ing  with  oil;  a  gipsy  carmine,  that 
Autumn  employs  to  stain  her  cheeks 
with,  here  where  in  the  hazy  woods 
128 


Nature-Notes 

she  stands  leaning  upon  a  stump 
whose  lower  part  is  ruffed  round, 
like  a  brown  and  wrinkled  throat, 
with  cream-white  fungus.  Whereso 
ever  she  steps  mushrooms  and  toad 
stools  spring  up,  and  the  rotting  and 
sodden  roots  of  decaying  trees  don 
fantastic  frills,  green  and  gray  and 
orange  colored,  and  the  air  is  filled 
with  the  agaric  odor  of  dampness  and 
decay. 

Who  is  it  that  can  define  poetry, 
the  indefinable?  I  have  tried  again 
and  again  to  define  it,  but  all  my  defi 
nitions  have  proven  unsatisfactory  to 
me;  one  definition  I  remember,  that 
seemed  to  arrive  nearer  to  it  than 
all  the  others,  is  that  poetry  is  the 
metrical  or  rhythmical  expression  of 
the  emotions  occasioned  by  the  sight 
or  the  knowledge  of  the  beautiful,  the 
melancholy,  and  the  noble  in  nature 
and  in  man. 

9  129 


Nature-Notes 

The  polished  berries,  oval  crim 
son,  of  the  spicewood  bush  brighten 
through  the  dark  green  leaves,  —  like 
the  wreath  that  crowns  a  dryad's 
hair,  —  in  the  woodlands  of  Septem 
ber  that  lean,  in  quiet  contemplation 
of  themselves,  over  the  sluggish 
waters  of  a  creek.  The  furtive  craw 
fish  darts  sidewise-backward,  swiftly, 
claws  advanced,  over  the  brown  bot 
tom  of  the  creek-bed,  taking  refuge 
from  my  outreached  hand  under  the 
oozy  edge  of  a  rock,  on  which  lies 
the  singularly  globed  and  angled 
shadow,  bubble-like,  of  the  water- 
strider.  The  great  lobelia's  purple 
and  the  blue  of  the  mist-flower  to 
gether  with  the  cardinal-flower's 
scarlet  lend  splendid  tone  to  the 
banks  of  the  running  streams  or 
weedy  and  waterless  ditches  of  the 
wayside. 


130 


Nature-Notes 

Her  hair  wreathed  round  with  the 
wild  oats'  bristling  awns  September 
went;  and  now  October  follows  her, 
crowned  with  the  black-gum's  crim 
son  leaves  pointed  here  and  there 
with  the  purple-black  of  its  berries. 
Among  the  brush  by  the  roadside  the 
hazels  show  their  long,  grayish  white 
buds;  and  on  leafless  branches  the 
ripened  nuts  gloom  in  brown  clusters 
and  gold,  reminding  one  of  elfin 
heads  peeping  out  of  scolloped  ruffs. 


Early  in  October  I  found  the  Her 
cules-club  towering  by  the  dusty  way 
or  hanging  its  heavy  head  of  elder- 
like  berries  wearily  over  the  waters, 
dominating  the  autumn  tangle  of  su 
mach  and  green-brier;  its  putty-col 
ored  stalk  one  bristle  of  thorny  spikes, 
it  certainly  looked  every  bit  of  its 
name.  The  small  trees  of  the  box- 
elder  rustled  their  maple-like  wings, 


Nature-Notes 

or  keys,  stirring  uneasily  with  every 
gust.  The  iron-wood  trees,  covered 
with  hop-like  clusters,  whispered 
something  to  the  October  wind  that 
kept  tirelessly  wandering  around 
them.  The  creepers,  crowning  the 
rail-fence  with  crimson,  gave  the 
tops  of  the  cross-rails  the  ap 
pearance,  thrust  over  the  inter- 
tangling  bosks  and  bushes,  of  being 
the  feathered  and  scarlet-fluttering 
heads  of  hidden  Indians  watching 
where, 

Clung  o'er  with  cockle-burrs  and  thorny 
seeds, 

Sad  Autumn  dreamed  among  her  feather 
ing  weeds. 


November  4th.  The  purple  and 
white  ray  flowers  of  the  wild  asters 
are  transformed  into  round,  gray- 
brown  witch-heads  of  gossamer  seeds 
that  nod  and  beckon  fantastically, 
132 


Nature-Notes 

shimmering,  a  silver  gauze,  in  the 
afternoon  sunlight.  The  oaks  retain 
their  leaves  longer  than  any  of  the 
other  trees,  loath  to  disrobe  them 
selves,  and  reddening  with  rage  and 
shame  that  the  month  demands  it  of 
them.  Their  boughs  and  branches 
twinkle  bronze  and  ruddy  gold  with 
every  movement  of  the  wind.  Stal 
wart  they  hold  the  hills,  a  host,  whose 
blood-red  banners  are  advanced  far 
above  the  other  trees,  and  whose 
bronze-dark  armor  glitters  as  't  were 
for  battle. 


To-day,  November  loth,  I  found 
the  yellow  primrose  freshly  blooming 
on  its  tall  green  stalk, —  a  fairy  moon, 
it  seemed,  shining  by  day  amid  a 
firmament  of  aster  stars.  I  also 
found,  covering,  balloon-like,  the  sere 
masses  of  briers  with  many  feathery 
pompons,  —  their  centres  showing  a 
133 


Nature-Notes 

single  black  point,  —  the  puffball 
seed-heads  of  the  wild  clematis. 
Near  by,  the  slender  stream  was 
clocked  with  ice,  the  frozen  road  was 
seamed  with  silver  ruts. 


134 


igoi-igos 

I   NEVER  see  an  old  farmhouse 
with  its  Quaker-like  front  and 
its  old-fashioned  kitchen  gar 
den  full  of  flowers  and  simples  and 
vegetables,  but  it  reminds  me  of  the 
good  gray  Quaker  poet  and  certain 
lines  of  his,  beautiful  and  true,  come 
to  my  mind;   lines,  that,  as  it  were, 
epitomize  his  creed :  — 

"  For  still  in  mutual  sufferance  lies 
The  secret  of  true  living; 
Love  scarce  is  love  that  never  knows 
The  sweetness  of  forgiving/* 


April  loth,   1901.     What  tipplers 
the  bees  and  the  flies  and  even  the 
135 


Nature-Notes 

ants  are !  How  fond  are  they  of  the 
saccharine  in  Nature!  To-day  I 
came  upon  a  sugar  maple  which  a 
woodpecker  had  drilled  with  several 
tiny  holes,  from  which,  sap-satu 
rated,  the  sweet  moisture  was  exud 
ing;  around  these  holes  and  down 
the  dampened  side  of  the  tree  trunk 
the  bees,  the  flies,  and  the  ants 
swarmed,  like  drunkards  around  a 
free  and  flowing  tap,  literally  drown 
ing  themselves  in  the  brew. 

Around  me  on  every  side  the 
spring-beauty,  anemone,  and  blood- 
root  bloomed  in  multitudes,  blurring, 
innumerable,  their  white  stars  here 
and  there  in  galaxies  over  the  ground, 
misty  and  nebulous  from  a  distance. 
Occasionally  I  came  upon  a  preco 
cious  spray  of  Dutchman's-breeches, 
or  wild  bleedingheart,  hung  frailly 
with  delicately  transparent  shell-like 
blossoms.  The  Virginia  cowslip  was 
also  putting  forth  its  tufts  of  heaven- 
136 


Nature-Notes 

blue,  —  belf ried  bells,  seemingly,  that 
call  the  fairies  to  prayer.  The 
leaves,  adder-mottled,  of  the  dog's- 
tooth  violet  speared  the  loam  here 
and  there,  —  a  myriad  brown-blotted 
beaks  of  green.  Not  a  wood  violet 
did  I  see.  The  spicewood  with  its 
yellow  buds  and  the  red-bud  with  its 
purplish  blooms  gave  or  loaned  color 
to  the  drab  background  of  the  yet 
unleafmg  brush  and  trees.  A  prole 
tarian,  bent  on  gathering  early  honey, 
on  filling  his  fairy  sack,  the  bulky  bee 
went  booming  by.  I  stopped  a  mo 
ment  to  see  him  rumble  and  tumble 
among  the  pussy-willows  in  a  little 
hollow,  green-spread  with  a  grassy 
carpet  patterned  with  wildflowers, 
smelling  of  honeyed  musk,  like  the 
fragrant  dressing-room  of  Spring. 


April  27th,  1901.     The  expanding 
sheaths  of  the  leaves  of  the  lirioden- 
137 


Nature-Notes 

dron,  or  tulip  tree,  are  like  pale  vel 
vety  green  fingers,  umber-tipped, 
pointing  heavenward  —  or  is  it  to 
passing  April,  or  approaching  May? 
They  are  covered  with  an  adhering 
and  balsamic  gum,  giving  them  a 
varnished  golden  appearance.  More 
truly  speaking  they  are  of  a  silvery, 
fuzzy  golden  appearance  —  but  what 
words  can  describe  adequately  or  im 
part  perfectly  the  impression  of  the 
colors  which  Spring  employs  in 
painting  her  young  leaves  and  her 
flowers? 

And  there  are  the  cherry  trees! 
What  wonders,  what  marvels  of 
whiteness!  Black-heart  and  white- 
heart  heaping  their  huge  drifts  of 
snowy  blossoms.  I  never  beheld  any 
thing  more  beautiful  than  are  these 
beautiful  trees  this  spring.  Their 
odorous  snow  intoxicates  the  air  and 
ravishes  the  senses;  bee,  bird,  and 
breeze  make  their  great  mounds,  like 
138 


Nature-Notes 

motionless  clouds  anchored  to  earth, 
murmurous  and  revelous  haunts  of 
melody. 

Near  a  pond  a  maple  tree  stands 
crimson  as  if  Autumn  had  touched  it 
with  fiery  finger,  instead  of  Spring; 
giving  flame  to  its  numberless  dan 
gling  double-winged  keys  or  seed 
pods,  out  of  whose  rosy  clusters  the 
pearly  points  of  the  sprouted  leaves 
project  —  tips  of  tiny  candles  that 
will  soon  glow  with  emerald  green. 
The  whole  tree  gives  one  the  impres 
sion  of  a  flaming  torch,  but  burning 
from  the  bottom  upwards  instead  of 
from  the  top  downwards. 

I  catch  the  fragrance  of  the  blos 
soms  of  the  plum  tree  now  which  is 
exactly  that  of  new-made  wine,  a 
heliotrope  and  vanilla-like  odor.  No 
wonder  that  the  bees  and  the  butter 
flies  are  intoxicated  with  it  and  go 
reeling  away  in  honeyed  happiness 
after  revelling  in  its  blossoms  a  while. 
139 


Nature-Notes 

The  fragrance  of  the  plum  trees  vies 
with  that  of  the  cherry  trees.  Noth 
ing  that  I  ever  smelled  is  so  delicately, 
so  deliciously  intoxicating  as  is  their 
mingled  perfume,  borne  by  that  great 
mixer  the  wind,  from  their  masses  of 
white  bloom,  in  which  the  inebriate 
bees  and  breezes  make  perpetual  mur 
mur,  and  the  birds  drown  themselves, 
their  songs  rising,  like  bubbles,  from 
their  fragrant  deeps. 


The  lush  green  smell  of  the  young 
grass,  cool  and  warm  at  the  same 
time,  invites  one  to  rest  and  dream 
on  its  emerald  carpet.  The  black 
bird's  continual,  vibrant,  wire-like, 
metallic  note  creaks  and  creaks  in  the 
top  of  a  sweet-gum  tree  like  a  rusty 
reed  tuned  in  praise  of  spring. 

Here  in  the  damp  places  of  the 
wood  and  the  shadowy  parts  of  the 
orchard  one  comes  frequently  upon 
140 


Nature-Notes 

the  succulent  cones  of  the  sponge 
mushroom,  the  earliest  edible  fungus 
of  the  year.  On  the  hillside,  in  the 
woods,  the  dwarf  larkspur,  a  watery 
blue  and  white,  bristles  with  spurry 
spikes  of  blossoms.  This  spot  of 
deadened  wood  and  stumps  is  a  reg 
ular  rallying  place  for  them.  I  stop 
a  moment,  seating  myself  upon  a 
dead  tree  trunk.  How  curious  are 
the  worm-worn  borings  under  the 
torn-off  bark  of  a  fallen  and  red- 
rotted  tree !  hieroglyphic  and  crooked 
and  erratic  as  the  lines  that  mark, 
I  imagine,  some  antique  gem  of 
Arabia,  the  seal  of  some  long-dead 
Sultan. 


"  The  noon  was  clouded,  yet  no  shower 

fell 

Though  in  her  lids  hung  the  sweet  tears 
of  May." 

May   is   here.     The   red  oak  crim 
sons  into  tenderly  velvet  leaves,  and 
141 


Nature-Notes 

the  white  oak  clothes  itself  in  vair 
and  mauve  and  lavender  and  rose. 
The  indefinable,  bittersweet,  apple 
fragrance  of  the  wild-crab  blossoms 
makes  every  wind  swoon  with  joy. 
No  perfume  cultivated  by  fashion  is 
more  refined  or  subtly  haunting  than 
is  this  wild-apple  odor  with  which  the 
May  makes  sweet  her  body. 


May  isth,  1901.  Came  upon  an 
entire  hillside  of  the  bird's-foot  violet. 
Their  pansy-purple  blossoms,  scat 
tered  like  sapphires  among  the  moss 
and  dead  leaves  under  the  soft  un 
folding  velvet  of  the  oaks,  made  a 
picture  too  beautiful  for  words  to  de 
scribe.  I  carried  the  memory  of  it 
home  to  the  city  with  me  and  it  has 
remained  with  me  ever  since. 


How     curious     looking    are     the 
curdled  mud  chimneys  that  the  craw- 
142 


Nature-Notes 

fish  mason  in  the  wet  woods  and 
clayey  fields!  Lying  at  the  bottom 
of  the  hole  which  their  chimney  con 
tinues  and  protects,  their  great  claws 
advanced  threateningly  before  them, 
they  remind  me  of  some  unimagin 
able  monster  of  the  fairy  world ;  some 
elfin  dragon  or  kraken,  lying  in  wait 
for  venturesome,  lost,  or  belated 
fairykins,  ready  to  seize  them  with 
their  formidable  talons  and  instantly 
devour.  In  the  deeps  of  the  marsh- 
wood,  at  night,  I  have  heard  him 
heaving  up  his  hollow  house,  the  rude 
wall  of  his  oozy  tower,  a  wet,  vague 
sound  of  slime. 


How  the  various  sounds  of  Nature 
haunt  our  memories!  To-day,  mid- 
May,  standing  listening  to  the  rust 
ling  of  the  leaves  of  these  trees,  I 
cannot  help  thinking  how  different 
now  is  the  sound  of  the  movement 
143 


Nature-Notes    , 

of  their  limbs,  clothed  in  green,  from 
what  it  was  in  February  when,  un 
wieldy  and  weighed  down  with  crush 
ing  and  incasing  sleet,  blown  stiffly 
by  the  wind,  the  crystalline  and  crack 
ling  noise  of  their  branches  was  as 
the  sound  of  heavily  moving  silk. 


In  Georgia,  May  7th,  1902.  Who 
was  it  said  —  was  it  Lorenzo  the 
Magnificent  ?  or  who  ?  — 

"  That  on  every  side  we  find 
Absence,  as  men  say,  estranges; 
Fancy  ranges  as  the  eye  ranges ; 
Out  of  sight  is  out  of  mind. 

"  Love  departs  and  is  not  love ; 
As  from  sight  the  eye  departs 
Even  so  do  hearts  from  hearts ; 
And  at  other  hands  we  prove 

"  Fancies  rove  as  the  eyes  rove, 
Parted  pleasures  come  again."  — 

And     to    me     twofold     they     come 

here  in  beautiful  May  in  beautiful 
144 


Nature-Notes 

Georgia !  Here  you  might  truthfully 
say  the  brooks  babble  silver  over  bars 
of  pearl  and  topaz,  or  drop  lucid 
music  into  pools  basined  with  crystal, 
for  their  very  channels  are  paved 
with  blocks  and  pebbles  of  spar. 
Their  banks,  covered  with  ferns  as 
high,  and  often  higher  than  a  man's 
waist,  lean  over  to  admire  the  reflec 
tion  of  their  own  adornments, — 
glories  of  mountain  laurel,  with  its 
calico-like  clusters  of  blossoms,  aza 
leas,  sunset-colored,  and  wild  honey 
suckle,  rose  and  cream,  that  mass 
themselves  everywhere.  The  cali- 
canthus  and  Solomon's-seal,  bird's- 
foot  violet,  —  great  pools,  as  it  were, 
of  purple  and  azure  poured  from 
some  huge  cornucopia  of  color,  — 
and  the  wild  phlox,  streaking  the 
vistas  of  woods  here  and  there  with 
broad  lines  of  lavender,  seemingly 
bouquet  the  earth  with  blossoms  in 
honor  of  the  loveliest  month  of 
10  145 


Nature-Notes 

spring.  And  over  it  all  the  wood- 
thrush,  that  liquid-throated  lover  of 
the  leaves,  pipes  his  mellowest,  his 
most  triumphant  music,  as  if  he,  too, 
would  give  her  praise  —  May,  and 
lay  his  soul  in  song  at  her  feet,  her 
alding  her  presence  to  every  breeze 
that  blows,  and  to  every  tree  and 
wild  flower  that  grows,  in  notes  as 
deep  and  crystal-cool  and  clear  as 
her  own  eyes. 


Visited  a  whippoorwill's  nest  to 
day,  May  3Oth ;  one  that  I  discovered 
about  a  week  ago.  The  mother  bird 
rose,  fluttering  almost  from  under  my 
feet,  and  had  I  not  known  just  where 
to  look  for  them,  I  never  would  have 
been  able  to  distinguish  between  the 
two  little,  light,  red-brown  balls  of 
hairy  down  and  the  dead  oak  leaves 
on  which  they  lay,  almost  completely 
concealed  by  the  parent  bird,  before 
she  quit  her  nest,  under  two  brown 
146 


Nature-Notes 

leaves.  Quietly  the  two  little  gro 
tesques  lay,  about  a  day  old,  with 
tightly  closed  eyes,  huddled  side  to 
side,  among  the  sere  leaves.  I  care 
fully  recovered  them  with  the  two 
brown  leaves,  and  —  to  the  relief  of 
their  parent,  who  kept  up  a  continual 
fluttering  among  the  neighboring 
underbrush  —  left  them  to  become, 
doubtless  in  time,  like  herself,  weird 
voices  of  the  dusk,  haunters,  too,  of 
the  twilight. 


Circled  with  trees,  in  Indiana,  I 
came  upon  a  water,  a  forest  pool,  and 
sat  an  hour  looking  into  it.  Now  and 
then  I  saw  —  was  it  a  turtle?  —  or 
merely  some  strange  water  creature 
conjured  up  by  my  imagination  ?  —  a 
spraddle-legged,  shell-backed  shadow 
ferrying  slowly  through  the  cairn 
gorm  deeps.  Then  a  little  waggle- 
tailed  frog  —  or  was  it  a  frog?  or 
a  fairy  philosopher  regarding  me 
147 


Nature-Notes 

through  his  goggle  eye-glasses?  — 
seated  on  a  lily  pad,  addressed  me  in 
a  high,  piping  voice,  like  a  professor 
delivering  a  lecture.  Here  and  there 
others  took  up  his  note,  like  a  lot  of 
mimicking  students,  bandying  it  back 
and  forth  raucously  high  or  low,  ac 
cording  to  their  size.  Most  of  them 
were  still  very  young;  in  the  transi 
tional  stage  —  between  tadpole  and 
frog  —  and  with  their  bass  or  tenor 
voices  reminded  me  very  much  of  an 
Apollo  Club,  in  swallow-tailed  suits, 
giving  a  full-dress,  batrachian  con 
cert,  each  crouching  gnome-like  on 
his  lily-leaf  platform.  When  I  moved 
they  plunged  precipitately  into  the 
pond,  spattering  the  lily  pads  with 
rolling  and  glittering  rounds  of  liquid 
brilliants  —  diamonds  spilled  on  em 
erald  mats. 

Among    these    green,     spectacled 
haunters  of  the  pool,  gnarled  gnomes 
of   the  water,   that  meditate  magic 
148 


Nature-Notes 

each  one  in  his  own  sorcerous  circle 
of  green  lily  leaf ;  in  a  shadowy  place, 
under  a  trailing  trumpet-vine,  —  a 
riot  of  June,  clustered  over,  as  it 
were,  with  splashes  of  tubular  scarlet, 

There  was  an  old  frog 

Sat  on  a  log 

In  the  light  of  the  crescent  moon,  aboon, 
In  the  light  of  the  pale  new  moon : 

And  he  said  to  the  crescent, 

"  My  dear,  look  pleasant ! 
I  'm  going  to  sing  you  a  tune,  real  soon ; 
I  am  going  to  sing  you  a  tune." 


The  acrid,  warm  odor  of  the  fields 
of  white-top  and  wild  carrot  lay  like 
a  spell  upon  the  land.  Noon  hummed 
and  buzzed,  grasshopper-like,  at  the 
wood's  edge,  or  drowsily  whistled, 
like  a  bob-white,  from  the  harvest 
field,  that  slept,  sultry  with  sunshine, 
in  the  heavy,  hot  fragrance  of  the 
blossoming  elder;  pelted  with  petals, 
149 


Nature-Notes 

and  the  downy  pearl  blossoms  of  the 
flowering  chestnut  tree,  that  fell  in 
long  splashes  of  white,  slenderly 
curved,  as  from  a  pale-towering, 
never-falling  fountain. 

So  let  Noon  lead  me  till  at  last  she  reaches 
That  spot  where  Evening  tarries  brown 
Beneath  the  trees,  through  which  the  sun 
set  bleaches ; 
Deep   in   a   wood   of   ancient   oaks   and 

beeches, 

Where  I  may  lay  me  down, 
With  all  the  loveliness  that  Nature  teaches, 
And  watch  Night  crown  her  with  her 
starry  crown. 


Violet  mists  of  the  rain  veiling 
with  vapor  the  distant  hills  and  val 
leys,  checkered  here  and  there  with 
great  blurs  and  streaks  of  interchang 
ing  sunlight  and  shadow  as  the  dark 
blue  clouds  of  wind  and  rain  roll 
heavily  over  them.  The  woods  and 
ways  are  literally  spangled  with  but- 
150 


Nature-Notes 

terflies  of  all  descriptions,  colors, 
sizes,  and  shapes:  small  and  large; 
brown  and  moth-mottled  with  dim 
and  dusty  blues  and  blacks;  terra 
cotta-colored  and  copper-marked ; 
scarlet  and  seal  and  gold,  making 
gay  the  stalks  of  withered  weeds  as 
with  a  sudden,  a  magic  burst  of 
strange  and  tropical  blossoms. 


The  catbird  says  —  "  Sweet  — 
you,  sweet  —  you,  sweet  —  you ! 
Very  sweet  —  you,  you,  you !  Sweet, 
sweet !" 

Nature  is  full  of  voices;  some 
heard;  some  unheard;  all  of  them 
eloquent  of  loveliness,  happy  or  mel 
ancholy,  preaching  or  singing  the 
gospel  of  the  beautiful. 


Yesterday,  walking  in  the  woods 
of  autumn,  the  wind  kept  up  a  con 
tinual  whispering  around  me,  as  if 


Nature-Notes 

desirous  of  communicating  some  old 
and  awful  trouble  to  my  soul.  When 
it  discovered  that  I  could  not  or 
would  not  understand,  it  cried  an 
grily  in  the  trees,  withering  through 
the  sere,  red,  restless  oaks,  complain 
ing  to  them  of  something  sadder  than 
life.  The  witch-faced  moon  of  day 
looked  down  upon  the  faded  forest 
like  the  ghost  of  old  tragedy  weary 
unto  wonder.  The  smoky,  dun,  and 
drab-colored  woodlands,  that  belted 
the  hill,  lifted  up  imploring  arms  of 
ashen  branches,  as  if  beseeching 
heaven  to  spare  them;  the  sunlight 
of  the  afternoon  piercing  them  with 
its  chilly  gold  in  broad  gray  blades 
of  mournful  and  dusty-looking  light. 


Nemophilist  that  I  am,  I  also  am 

a  lover  of  the  fields,  of  the  meadows; 

especially  after  a  night  of  rain  when 

the  clean  green  of  the  autumn  fallows 

152 


Nature-Notes 

is  dotted  with  the  meadow  mush 
rooms,  holding  up,  each  one,  its  white 
pileus,  like  parasols  of  the  elves, 
ribbed  with  delicate  pink  gills.  And 
when 

Above  the  hills  the  sunset 's  rolled 
One  long  deep  streak  of  lurid  gold, 

from  the  nemorous  side  of  a  hill,  over 
the  waving  plumes  of  goldenrod  and 
aster,  I  have  often  fancied  I  could 
see,  in  lamels  of  refulgent  armor,  the 
eidolon  of  the  autumn  day  beckoning 
me  on  to  follow,  over  the  glittering 
meadows,  into  some  wonder  world 
of  mystery  and  magic,  towering, 
shadowy  gold  and  fire,  beyond  the 
sunset's  clouds  and  mists  of  purple 
and  flame. 


March  I7th,   1903.     For  the  first 
time  this  year,  here  in  Kentucky,  to 
day  I  heard  the  hylodes  piping  in  the 
153 


Nature-Notes 

marshy  places:  those  elfin  music- 
makers  of  March,  fairy  horn-blowers 
heralding  the  approach  of  Spring. 

A  myriad  golden-thighed  honey 
bees,  with  one  great  black  bumblebee, 
—  burly  and  crapulous  choragus  of 
the  Bacchic  chorus,  —  were  zooming 
and  booming  among  the  fluffy,  furry 
catkins  of  the  willows  that  hung,  a 
green-gold  mist,  along  the  borders  of 
a  stream;  the  fragrance  and  honey 
of  the  pussy-willows  had  made  bois 
terous  Bacchantes  of  them  all. 

The  chortling  orchestration  of  the 
hylodes;  the  warbling  of  the  bush- 
sparrow  in  tufting  cotton  woods;  the 
violet,  breaking  azure  over  the  sod; 
the  moist  spring  smell  of  the  fresh 
new  grass,  and  glimmer  of  the  cat 
kins,  combined  to  form  a  symphony 
of  sounds,  aromas,  and  colors  that  no 
man-made  music  could  ever  equal. 

Cobwebs,  iridescent  in  the  sunlight, 
streamed  by,  the  tattered  and  rent 
154 


Nature-Notes 

remnants  of  the  banners  of  elfdom, 
caught  here  and  there  on  the  with 
ered  weeds  of  last  year:  or  shim 
mered  in  broken  arches,  the  gossamer 
bridges  of  fairyland;  or  floated 
slowly  away  in  torn  shreds,  shattered 
rainbows  of  the  fays. 

The  cottonwoods'  blooms  made  the 
winds  haunting  and  balsam-sweet, 
smelling  like  the  Balm-of-Gilead,  and 
sonorous  with  the  joy  of  a  thousand 
busy  honey-bees. 


March  i8th,  1903.  Wildflowers, 
everywhere,  up  in  profusion.  Within 
a  few  feet  of  each  other  I  found 
anemones,  spring-beauties  and  wood- 
violets  blooming,  and  the  adder's- 
tongue,  or  dog's-tooth  violet,  showing 
its  brown-freckled  leaf. 

The  trees  were  perfect  clerestories 
for  the  birds,  whence  the  bluebird, 
the  robin,  the  wren,  sap-sucker,  spar- 
155 


Nature-Notes 

row,  catbird  and  redbird  chorused 
their  songs,  to  which  the  meadow- 
lark,  like  a  priest  before  the  altar  cel 
ebrating  the  High  Mass  of  Spring, 
antiphoned  responses. 

Suddenly,  in  a  shadowy  opening  of 
the  trees,  I  glimpsed  the  bluebell,  or 
Virginia  cowslip,  its  porcelain-like, 
purple-pink  heads  of  clustered  buds 
bowing  heavily  over  the  lush  green 
stem  of  greener  leaves  —  promises 
of  beauty  that  the  month,  a  week 
hence,  shall  behold  perfect  and  blush 
ing  beneath  the  million  leaf-points  of 
the  beeches. 

A  little  further  on,  in  a  hollow  of 
sodden  loam  and  leaf  the  bloodroot 
lifted  its  virgin  chalices  of  hollow 
snow,  making  the  moist,  musk- 
haunted  aisles  of  the  cathedral-like 
forest  holy  with  its  pale,  lamp-like 
flowers  —  the  spiritual  presences,  as 
it  were,  of  many  little  sangraals.  Or 
here  a  clumped  colony  of  the  twin- 

156 


Nature-Notes 

leaf,  hardly  distinguishable  from  the 
bloodroot,  immaculate,  with  sloping, 
white,  half-open  blossoms,  tapered 
through  the  enfolding  leaves  like  frail 
candles  of  souls  celebrating  the  ad 
vent  of  spring. 

The  bloodroot  leaves  of  middle  March 
Lift  up  their  blooms,  each  one  a  torch 
Of  creamy  crystal  in  whose  white 
The  calyx  is  a  golden  light. 


March  23d,  1903.  The  tooth  wort, 
with  its  white,  four-petaled  flowers, 
variegates,  along  with  the  spring- 
beauty,  the  floor  of  the  forest  under 
the  bourgeoning  beeches :  amid  their 
delicate  enameling,  a  solitary  star, 
one  dog's-tooth  violet  mosaics  its 
pearl-pallid  blossom;  a  stray  from 
the  innumerable  host  that,  like  some 
invasion,  pierces  and  spears  the 
shady  hillside  with  countless  bronze- 
speckled  points  of  leaves. 
157 


Nature-Notes 

A  storm  is  rising.  The  bare 
boughs  roar  and  tumult  with  the 
rushing  winds  of  March.  The  pha 
lanxes  of  dead  leaves  panic  before  it 
in  galloping  skeleton  thousands,  rust 
ling  wildly  in  withered  flight.  Winds, 
—  vaunt  couriers  of  the  clouds  that 
roll  up  in  black  battalions,  —  sweep 
the  booming  boughs,  announcing  ter 
rific  things  to  the  reeling  trees,  whose 
tops  bow  down  and,  billowing,  swirl 
and  swing,  doing  obeisance  to  the 
storm.  And  now  the  full  force  of 
the  tempest  is  among  them;  ruin- 
footed  it  stalks  with  enormous 
strides,  crashing  and  clashing  their 
rumbling  trunks  together  as  if 
they  were  so  many  reeds.  There 
is  a  noise  as  of  hurling  and  hurry 
ing  hands,  the  trampling  of  gigan 
tic  feet,  the  roaring  of  riven  oak, 
of  rended  beech,  ponderous,  pro 
testing,  in  terrified  and  awful  pain, 
sounding  hugely  over  it  all,  over 
158 


Nature-Notes 

the   wild   roar  and  wilder   rush  of 


ram. 


March  26th,  1903.  The  amber- 
green  of  the  sassafras  blossom  glints 
in  the  sunlight,  tufting  with  flame  the 
dark  and  leafless  boughs,  and  drench 
ing  the  air  with  subtle  and  spicy  fra 
grance.  The  wild-bleeding-heart,  the 
harbinger  of  spring,  the  anemone, 
yellow  and  blue  violets,  spring-beauty, 
bloodroot,  hepatica,  and  the  budded 
pendants  of  the  bluebells  enamel  the 
wood  floor  with  white  and  gold,  pink 
and  azure.  Here  also  the  starry  eyes 
of  the  adder's-tongue,  bashful  as  a 
little  Puritan's,  look  demurely  down. 
And  the  celandine-poppy  scatters  its 
nuggets  of  early  gold  prodigally 
among  the  underwoods,  or  employs  its 
natural  alchemy  to  cover  with  ingots 
of  young  yellow  the  trickling  hillside, 
gleaming  here  and  there  amid  the 
dead  leaves  and  mossy  rocks  like 
159 


Nature-Notes 

Croppings  out  of  unmined  gold, 
Of  secret  wealth  no  man  hath  told. 


Moist,  rocky  places  of  the  spring, 
Rich  with  dark  woodland  loam, 

Where  hosts  of  golden  poppies  cling 
And  breaks   the  bloodroot's   and   the 
twinleaf s  foam. 

The  mossy  hillside's  bulging  rocks 
O'er  which  the  fragile  white-heart  flocks, 
Whose  penciled  leaves  and  shell-shaped 

blooms 
Seem  fancies  from  the  fairies'  looms. 


The  hairy  stems  of  the  hepatica, 
Beneath  the  wahoo-bush  and  leafing  haw, 
Nod  delicate  as  the  heads  of  elfin  maids 
Of  fairy  tales  who  haunt  the  forest  glades ; 

And  bluets,  like  a  Naiad's  eyes  adream, 
Assert    their    azure    by    the    woodland 

stream ; 
And,  where  the  wind-flower  braved  the 

winds  of  March, 

The  poppy  lights  its  golden  torch. 
160 


Nature-Notes 

Come  dance,  come  flaunt  yourselves,  ye 
wild  little  wind-flowers  of  March ! 

And,  poppies,  come  light  their  way  with 
the  hollow  gold  of  your  torch ! 


March  3ist,  1903.  The  mole- 
heaved  turf  that  smells  of  spring; 
the  gummy  gold  and  green  and  Balm- 
of-Gilead  scented  leaf-buds  of  the 
cottonwoods,  —  shelling  their  crisp 
cusps,  blown  hither  and  thither  by  the 
wind  of  late  March,  —  languor  the 
air  with  indescribable  essence  that 
softly  weighs  upon  one's  eyelids, 
soothing  them  to  sleep.  I  lie  beneath 
a  great  cottonwood  by  the  Ohio,  gaz 
ing  at  the  sky  through  its  boughs  and 
breathing  the  essence  of  spring  dis 
tilled  from  the  breeze-swung  censers 
of  its  blossoms,  crimson  turning  to 
gold-gray,  tasselling  the  huge  room 
of  its  branches.  The  curled  bronze 
and  black,  as  if  burned,  sticky  with 
aromatic  gum,  of  the  leaf-bud 
ii  161 


Nature-Notes 

sheaths    scatter    the    sand    and    the 
young  grass  on  which  I  lie. 


April  6th,  1903.  Great  white-heart 
cherry  trees  drifted  with  snow  of 
blossoms  and  pelting  the  passer-by 
with  flying  flakes  of  petals.  The 
buckeye  tree,  the  great  horse-chest 
nut,  is  a  huge  candelabrum  of  leaf- 
buds,  each  bud  a  point  of  fragrant 
bronze  infolding  pale  gold,  a  com 
pact  and  imprisoned  flame,  gummy 
and  glistening  with  spring  and  sap 
in  the  sunlight  of  early  April.  The 
balsam-pungent  smell  of  the  leaf- 
cusps  of  the  cottonwoods  resembles 
spice  blown  from  the  lattices  of  ori 
ental  harems.  Not  "  blossom  by 
blossom"  does  spring  begin  here, 
but  with  a  rush,  a  very  tempest  of 
blossoms.  Gill-over-the-ground,  den- 
taria,  starwort,  golden  corydalis,  mer- 
tensia,  celandine,  trillium,  wake-robin 
162 


Nature-Notes 

and  bluet,  regiment  on  regiment,  host 
on  host,  literally  storm  the  bewildered 
woodlands  with  their  blossoms.  High 
among  them,  like  a  purple  oriflamme, 
flutter  the  violet  clusters  of  the  Ja- 
cob's-ladder. 


April  8th,  1903.    The  Lepidoptera, 

—  some  very  large,  some  very  small, 

—  black  and  brown  and  blue,  make 
the  Judas-tree,  with  its  cloud  of  rosy 
blossoms,  a  little  world  of  flutter  and 
of  frenzy.     By  goes  a  great  dragon 
fly,  the  first  of  the  season,  like  a  bolt 
from   a   cross-bow.      Everywhere   is 
the    mirth,    the    babble    and   bubble, 
the    gurgle   and   whisper   of    wood 
land  waters,  mingled  with  the  jubi 
lation  of  birds  and  the  clapping  of 
leaf-hands,    the    contented    rubbing 
together    of    rustling    boughs    and 
branches  as  if  in  applause. 

I  came  into  a  wind-torn  wood  of 
oaks,   over  whose  rocky  and   rooty 


Nature-Notes 

floor,  sparsely  scattered,  shone  the 
first  wan  stars  of  the  bluets,  and 
whiter  than  blurs  of  frost,  the  blos 
soms  of  the  white  wild-plantain. 
Oaks,  oaks,  all  around  me  oaks,  don 
ning  their  velvet  vestments  of  pink 
and  purple  and  gold  —  the  young, 
unfolding  leaves  and  yet  unblossom- 
ing  buds,  long  and  silken,  of  their 
clustered  flowers. 

Far  off,  from  the  valley  below, 
rose  a  vague  chirping,  the  reedy 
notes  of  the  hylodes,  like  an  orches 
tra  of  fairy  flutes  tuned  in  time  to 
the  swift  steps  of  Spring.  Their 
music,  suggestive  to  me  of  pale  gray, 
glaucous  golden  bubbles  blown  all 
in  the  same  direction  by  the  wind, 
now  rose,  now  fell,  with  every  passing 
breeze. 

Through  the  satiny  amber  and  lav 
ender  and  rose  mists  of  the  leafing 
oaks,  tasselled  with  golden-green  of 
blossoms,  the  occasional  dogwoods 
164 


Nature-Notes 

showed  brownish  blurs  of  buds  try 
ing  to  be  white.  And  against  a  dark 
background  of  leafless  woods  the  sas 
safras,  breaking  into  chrysoprase, 
gleamed  glassy  golden. 

The  hillside  and  the  valley  seemed 
streaked  and  blotted  with  ochre  and 
umber,  grayish  green  and  violet,  dim 
lilac  and  amber  hues,  where  Spring 
had  touched  the  winter-washed 
boughs  of  the  woodlands.  And  climb 
ing  the  hills  and  invading  the  hollows, 
clothed  in  the  colors  of  happiness, 
like  attendants  in  her  rosy  train, 
peach  orchard  and  cherry  orchard 
glowed  in  raiment  of  pink  and  pearl. 


April  27th,  1903.  The  early,  dusty 
gray-green  of  the  budded  birch  has 
been  succeeded  by  a  glistening  and 
glimmering  emerald-green,  amid 
which  the  catbird  and  the  bluebird 
have  gone  mad  with  joy. 
165 


Nature-Notes 

With  the  first  warm  days  of  April 
came  the  large  blue  and  gray  dragon- 
flies,  flitting  and  whirring  erratically 
over  the  ponds  and  the  pools  and 
creeks.  Whence  do  they  come? 
From  the  South,  I  suppose ;  for  sud 
denly  they  are  here,  and  no  one  has 
seen  them  come;  probably  brought 
hither  on  the  wings  of  the  wind  that 
beat  about  my  roof  last  night  with 
plaintive  rain. 

The  two  blossoms  that  God  made 
alike,  the  bloodroot  and  the  twinleaf, 
are  now  no  more.  The  dogwood 
dazzles  the  woods,  a  steadfast  form 
of  snow  and  light  that  keeps  guard 
at  the  gateway  of  the  Courts  of 
Spring  and  poses  brilliantly  for  our 
admiration.  The  tender  pink  and 
delicate  mauve  of  the  spotted  leaves 
of  the  wild-grape,  roofing  with  twi 
light  the  saplinged  hillside,  —  where 
like  lamps  of  gold  the  celandine- 
poppies  are  scattered,  —  build  a 
166 


Nature-Notes 

green  temple  within  whose  sanctuary 
sunbeams  glimmer,  like  spirits  wor 
shipping  and  offering  up  flowery  sac 
rifice  to  the  maiden  Spring.  At  its 
entrance,  like  Galahad  the  pure 
knight,  in  armor  of  dazzling  white 
ness,  stands  the  blossoming  dogwood. 


Deep  in  the  leaves*  concealing  green 

A  wood-thrush  flutes, 

The  first  thrush  seen 

Or  heard  this  spring,  and  straight,  me- 

seems, 

Its  notes  take  on  the  attributes 
Of  mythic  fancies  and  of  dreams  — 
A  faun  goes  piping  o'er  the  roots 
And  mosses,  gliding  through  dim  gleams 
And  glooms,  and  while  he  glides  he  flutes, 
Though  still  unseen, 
'Mid  thorny  berry  and  wild-bean. 


The  ripened  heads  of  the  rattle 
snake  plantain  nod  their  touseled  tufts 
167 


Nature-Notes 

of  thistledown  at  me,  —  or  is  it  at 
the  little  blue  butterflies  that  flutter 
around  them?  —  as  if  they  knew  a 
thing  or  two  about  what  happens 
among  their  stalks  in  the  light  of  the 
May  moon  when  the  little  people  are 
abroad,  and  the  cricket  makes  dance- 
music  for  them. 


The  dewberries  are  blooming  now : 
The  days  are  long;  the  nights  are  short; 
The  dogwood  blossom  from  its  bough 
Drops  snowy  petals,  heart  by  heart, 
Here  where  she  laid  'gainst  mine  her  brow 
When  we  did  part. 


Soon    where    the    dewberries'    blossoms 

gleam 

The  berries  red  will,  ripening,  glow ; 
And  if  the  dogwood  by  the  stream 
Did  ever  bloom,  no  one  will  know, 
And  she,  too,  seem  a  vanished  dream 
Of  long  ago. 
168 


Nature-Notes 

The  yellow  star-flower  shows  its  gold 
Among  the  trees,  half  hid  in  grass ; 
Already  do  the  leaves  grow  old; 
Already  doth  the  springtime  pass ; 
And  last  year's  leaf  hath  turned  to  mould, 
As  love,  alas! 

The  crowfoot  blossom  lifts  its  eyes 
Of  amber  hue  from  'round  my  feet ; 
The  bluet  apes  the  Mayday  skies 
With  glances  blue  as  they  are  sweet, 
Here  where  last  spring  we  met  with  sighs, 
No  more  to  meet. 


Purple  the  hills  stretch  under  purple  mists, 
A  damson-frosted  purple  that  persists 
Even  in  the  valley,  darkling  there  that 

lies  — 
No  bluer  black  hath  night,  no  darker  dyes. 

The  low  gray  clouds,  whose  edges  are 
thinned, 

And  spun 
By  the  sun 
And  the  wind, 
How  they  swirl  and  curl 
And  furl  and  unfurl 
Into  lawny  lengths  of  snow  and  pearl ! 
169 


Nature-Notes 

Now  feathering  white  as  the  moon-mists 

do, 

For  the  wind  and  the  sun  to  tempest 
through, 

Now  closing  over, 
Cloud-cover  on  cover, 
Deep  azure  chasms  of  fringing  blue. 


The  cedars  are  breaking  into  gold. 
Their  dark  green  sprays  are  flushed 
with  the  young  gold  of  May,  tufted 
and  spined  and  edged  as  with  amber- 
flickering  fire. 


It  is  like  coming  upon  a  bit  of  the 
Orient,  a  dream  of  Samarcand  or 
Bagdad,  to  come  upon  this  clump  of 
great  crimson-  and  orange-headed 
poppies,  sultry  with  slumber  and 
magnificently  indolent  in  the  sun 
light.  Their  sullen  hearts,  —  opium- 
pollened,  smooth,  deep  brown  or 
purple-black,  —  they  hold  up  and 
open,  languid  and  beautiful  courte- 
170 


Nature-Notes 

sans,  to  every  passing  bee,  inviting 
them  to  drug  themselves  and  dream 
within  their  voluptuous  bosoms.  Me, 
too,  they  have  drugged:  days  shall 
pass,  months,  perhaps  years,  and 
still  shall  the  memory  of  their  beauty 
haunt  me  —  their  faces  of  henna- 
colored  flame;  or,  raimented  in  ruby, 
their  bosoms  of  fire,  sullen-centred 
with  hearts  of  powdery  purple. 


Hark  how  the  honey-throated  thrush 
With  notes  of  limpid  harmony 
Scatters  the  noonday's  liquid  hush, 
Taking  the  woods  with  witchery. 
Hid  in  the  foliage  deeps  of  green 
He  flutes  his  wildwood  notes  serene, 
Like  some  tree-spirit,  lost,  unseen. 


May  1 5th,  1903.  Deep-hearted 
peonies,  soft-souled  as  sleep  and  gor 
geous  as  a  dream  that  comes  tricked 
out  in  Shakespeare's  fancy,  now 
make  sumptuous  the  garden  ways. 
171 


Nature-Notes 

Holding  up  their  heavy,  dew- jewelled 
gowns  of  crumpled  crimson  or  cream, 
they  stand,  stately  as  the  Athenian 
ladies  in  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 
smiling  at  their  lovers. 

The  milk-white  stars  of  the  water- 
lilies  peep  from  between  the  green 
pads  of  the  pond,  at  whose  edge  the 
sparrow  and  the  thrush  are  taking 
their  morning  bath,  preening  with 
wet  beaks  their  backs  and  wings  and 
breasts. 

Bubbles  of  bursting  coolness  rise 
between  the  lily-leaves,  marking  the 
way  the  gold  carp  goes,  a  crimson 
blur,  a  rosy  shadow,  a  slow,  strange 
streak  of  chilly  flame,  moving  dimly 
under  the  lilies  in  the  smoky  crystal 
of  the  waters. 

Giant  irises  clump  and  crowd  the 
water's  edge.  Their  beautiful  blos 
soms,  azure  and  white,  are  the  huge 
notes  of  a  soundless  symphony  under 
whose  spell  the  water  seems  to  sleep. 
172 


Nature-Notes 

The  ground  is  strewn  with  the  dead  oak- 
bloom, 

Brown  and  withered  as  autumn  broom : 
And  there,  in  a  hollow  of  the  hills, 
Like  a  giant  pearl  in  a  giant  hand, 
Is  a  white-washed  hut  where  an  old  man 

tills 

A  barren  acre  of  barren  land. 
An  arid  acre,  that  soon  shall  blow 
With  wild-rose  crimson  and  elder  snow. 


I  unlabyrinthed  to-day  a  little 
worm  no  larger  than  a  pin's  head 
that  had  caused  a  weed's  stem  to 
swell  and  swell,  eating  its  long,  larval 
way  through  the  heart  of  the  weed. 

That  little  worm  shall  become  a  fly, 

And  sing  and  sting  'neath  the  summer 

sky; 
Or  a  gnat,  like  that  which  grows  in  the 

gall 

High  on  the  oak  leaf  there  —  a  ball 
That  the  elves  shall  loose  and  toss  over  all 
Merrily  under  the  next  new  moon ;  — 
173 


Nature-Notes 

When  it  '11  grow  itself  wings  and  a  sting 

and  a  tune, 
Stinging  and  singing  its  way  into  June. 


The  cow-spit  flecks  the  ragweed's 
stem  with  frothy  white,  a  slimy  foam 
with  which  a  flat  green  worm  seems 
to  deluge  itself  pumping  it  up  out  of 
the  green  of  the  weed.  It  reminds 
me  of  certain  novelists  whose  impos 
sible  styles  are  literally  overwhelmed 
with  the  froth  and  fury  of  their 
fictions. 

The  red  clay  of  the  road  is  bored 
and  heaved  up  by  some  sort  of  insect, 
a  mining  hornet,  or  spider  hiding 
from  a  hornet,  to  which  the  bug  in 
the  weed,  drowned  in  its  own  spittle, 
bears  some  resemblance.  Each  has 
its  own  little  world  to  live  in,  whether 
it  be  a  hole  in  the  earth  or  a  hole  in 
a  weed. 

174 


Nature-Notes 

May  i6th,  1903.  Bells  of  the  blos 
soming  huckleberries  ringing  their 
inaudible  white  music  up  and  down 
the  Maytime  hills,  and  a  million 
bluets  blooming,  among  whose  blos 
soms  one  gold-thighed  bee  goes 
roaming, 

Invite  my  soul  to  rest  awhile 

And  dream  beneath  their  azure  smile. 


The  smell  of  tannin  in  the  ozoned  air 
Under  the  oaks  when  the  woods  are 

green, 
And  the  scent  of  the  soil  and  moisture 

where 
The  young  leaves  dangle  and  make  a 

screen, 
Where  the  hiding  wood-nymph  combs  her 

hair, 
Have  breathed  me   full   of  the  Faun 

again, 

And   made  me  kin  to  the  wind  and 
rain. 

175 


Nature-Notes 

The  stealthy  squirrel  skips  along; 
The  bush-bird  lifts  its  twilight  song ; 
The  great  frog  sounds  his  resonant  gong 
At  nightfall. 

The  small  wood-gnat,  that  stings  and  flies, 
And  drowns  itself  for  rage  in  your  eyes, 
Sings  and  whines  and  thinly  cries 
At  nightfall. 

The  hairy  spiders,  that  crouch  outside 
Their    earth-bored    lairs,    now    stealthily 

glide, 

Or  spin  great  webs  for  the  moths  that  hide 
Till  nightfall. 


May  1 7th,  1903.  Three  birds  have 
followed  and  haunted  my  steps  all  the 
afternoon.  First,  a  catbird,  singing 
a  paean  in  praise  of  the  day,  filled  with 
a  passion  of  splendid  sunlight  and 
warm  wind,  perched  in  the  top  of 
a  cottonwood  whose  woolly  wisps 
are  blown  like  fragments  of  fleece 
through  the  air.  Second,  a  song- 
sparrow,  small  and  sweet,  lilting  a 
176 


Nature-Notes 

pensive  little  lay,  small  and  sweet  as 
itself,  a  tinkle,  as  it  were,  a  silvering 
down  of  dewy  notes.  Thirdly,  a 
crimson-winged  blackbird,  repeat 
ing  monotonously  its  one  strident, 
persistently  piercing  and  importu 
nate  note,  emphasized  occasionally  by 
prolonging  the  expression  "  sweet " 
into  "  s-w-e-e-e-e-t,"  or  is  it  "  sweet- 
er-ee,"  or  "o-ka-lee"? 


Colorado,  June  I2th,  1903.  The 
pools  of  water  left  by  the  rain  of  last 
night  in  the  rocks  of  the  mountains 
are  the  mirrors  over  which  the 
Oreads  braid  their  hair,  heavy  with 
the  wet  of  the  mountain  mists  and 
twined  with  the  mountain  flowers. 
I  can  fancy  them,  white  and  naked  as 
the  stars  that  haunt  the  loftiest  peaks, 
leaning  like  lilies  over  these  pools,  by 
the  moon's  cold  light,  wondering  and 
marvelling  at  their  own  wild  love- 
12  177 


Nature-Notes 

liness,  their  eyes  shining  through 
their  locks,  —  dark  and  dishevelled, 
—  as  the  mountain  dawn  breaks, 
violet-gray,  through  scud  of  stream 
ing  storm. 


October  28th,  1903.  Autumn  is 
with  us.  She  who  endears  herself 
to  us  through  her  decay.  Again 
the  sober  brown  carpet  of  the  leaves 
rustles  on  the  forest  floors.  Once 
more,  here  in  Kentucky,  the  long 
bronze-green  blurs  and  streaks, 
stealthily  serpentine,  of  the  duck 
weed  marble  the  sluggish  streams 
and  pools  with  copperas  hues,  mak 
ing  of  each  a  huge  moss-agate, 
under  the  clear  lemon  and  burnt 
brown  of  the  beeches.  Again  the 
huckleberry  bushes  seem  turned  into 
garnet  and  ruby,  their  leaves,  colored 
with  carmine  and  vermilion,  cover 
each  bush,  making  it  burn  like  that 
from  which  God  addressed  Moses. 
178 


Nature-Notes 

Again  the  moss,  crisp,  dry  and  gray, 
starred  here  and  there  with  plushy 
green,  makes  mute  the  step.  Again 
the  acorns  sow  the  way,  falling  con 
tinually,  and  crunching  and  crack 
ling  under  the  feet,  along  with  the 
burrs  of  the  beech  and  chestnut  now 
emptied  of  their  nuts.  Again  the 
oleander-colored  skies  of  sunset,  seen 
through  the  columned  iron  of  the 
oaks,  invite  the  soul  to  wander  and 
lose  itself  in  the  forest  of  dreams  and 
shadows.  The  blue-winged  wasp 
and  the  yellow-winged  grasshopper 
seem  aweary  of  their  own  singing. 
The  bush-clover,  tired  of  its  papil 
ionaceous,  pink  blossoms,  is  convert 
ing  them  rapidly  into  links  of  flat 
green  burrs  that  loosen  and  cling  to 
all  that  touches  them.  Burr-mari 
golds  besiege  the  woodland  ways, 
bristling  an  army  of  brown  burr- 
heads,  dishevelled  spikes  of  forked 
thorns.  Flame-flecked  leaves,  or 
179 


Nature-Notes 

leaves  stained  with  blood-red  fire, 
flutter  and  fall  around  us,  heaping 
the  path  that  leads  to  the  leaf-clogged 
stream,  reflecting  all  the  sorrow  and 
savagery  of  the  year,  the  cinnabar  of 
the  burning-bush,  the  scarlet  of  the 
sumachs,  —  already  half-stripped  of 
their  leaves,  —  and  the  crimson  and 
gold  of  the  maples.  Now  and  then 
one  catches  the  pungent,  alkali  odor, 
so  characteristic  of  autumn,  of  burn 
ing  wood  and  weeds ;  and  in  the  twi 
light,  dotting  it  like  the  eyes  of  some 
forest  animal,  the  distant  smoulder 
or  flare  of  a  brush-fire.  And  then  at 
night  —  with  what  a  feeling  of  awe 
we  walk  the  autumn  woods!  What 
wonders,  what  whispers  walk  with  us ! 
Death  and  Melancholy  and  Decay, 
mysterious  and  invisible  companions 
of  the  rain  and  the  wind,  seem  never 
weary  of  telling  us  of  the  sorrow,  the 
sadness  of  existence,  complaining 
ceaselessly  to  the  sighing  and  weep- 
180 


Nature-Notes 

ing  trees  and  the  unhappy  and  dying 
flowers. 


Where  the  rain  that  comes  at  night 
tip-toes  in  its  whispering  gown,  the 
briers  are  bruised  and  veined  with 
bronze  and  blood; 

Each  leaf  is  marked  with  fire 
And  flame  makes  fierce  each  spire. 

The  oaks  sullen  into  swarthy  crim 
son  ;  or,  masses  of  brown  and  bronze, 
they  sombre  themselves  against  the 
ember-smouldering  West. 


Yesterday    among    the    beeches,    to-day 

among  the  oaks: 

Those  with  their  emerald  and  gold, 
Their  amber  golds  and  grays, 
These  with  their  blood-dark  bronze, 
Translucent,  frosty  reds: 
The  gold  the  Autumn  dons, 
The  blood  her  sad  heart  sheds, 
As  slow  she  goes  her  ways; 
Sheds  at  each  step,  that  cloaks 
Each  pool  that  glimmers  cold, 
181 


Nature-Notes 

Sunk  in  the  woodland  mould, 

'Mid  the  oaks,  of  whose  russets  and  reds 

Winds  make  their  beds, 

Bowing  their  withered  heads, 

That  are  old,  so  old, 

Where  the  Autumn  cons, 

In  her  golds  and  grays, 

Her  Book  of  Days. 


The  wind  is  rising  and  the  leaves  are 

blown, 
Wild,   swallow-high,   reluctant  still  to 

fall, 
Swarming  from  hill  to  hill;   and  over 

all 
The  sere,  wild-sounding  oaks  a  voice  calls 

lone, 
As  if  the  wood  some  ancient  word  were 

sighing, 
Some    unintelligible    word    of    beauty 

dying. 


The  dawn  comes  in  clad  all  in  hodden 

gray, 
And,   like  a  tattered  cloak  its  wildness 

wears, 

182 


Nature-Notes 

The   ragged    rain    sweeps    stormily    this 

way: 
The   acorn,    like  a  bullet,    strikes   the 

soil; 

And  blown  from  its  wild  pod  the  milk 
weed's  plume, 

Wan  in  the  ghostly  and  the  gusty  gloom, 
Flares  like  a  lamp  hand-hollowed  of 

trembling  toil. 
NOVEMBER  i2th,  1904. 


Hylas,  that  pipe  the  little  buds  awake; 

The  shrill  hylodes,  how  they  sing 
Before  the  wind-flower  and  the  bloodroot 

shake 

Their  twinkling  stars  frail  in  the  locks 
of  Spring. 

The   rose-bruised  blue  of  the  bluebell's 

buds 
Will  soon  make  gay  the  hem  of  her 

gown  ; 
Green  as   the  green   of  the  young  oak 

woods 

Writh    changing    tints    of   mauve    and 
brown. 

183 


Nature-Notes 

And  soon  will  golden  poppies  cling1 
In  woodland  places  deep  with  loam, 

And  we  shall  glimpse  the  feet  of  Spring  — 
White  in  the  twinleaf 's  flowers  of  foam. 

And  all  the  hillside's  rugged  rocks 

She  '11  shower  with  shell-shaped  white- 
heart  blooms, 
Shaken  from  out  her  radiant  locks, 

As  down  she  comes  through  greenwood 
glooms. 


Spring  is  late  this  year.  It  is  now 
March  I2th,  and  hardly  a  bud  or 
blossom  is  to  be  seen  anywhere  in 
field  or  forest;  not  a  wildflower, 
neither  harbinger-of-spring,  spring- 
beauty,  nor  anemone.  All  is  still  sere 
and  sad  in  the  bare  brown  of  the 
windy  woods.  Not  even  a  violet  to 
push  aside  the  dead  leaves  and  open 
its  baby  eyes  to  the  stormy  sunlight. 
Only  Spring's  presence,  or  is  it  her 
approach?  —  is  evidenced  by  the 
warm,  wet  smell  of  turf  and  loam  and 
184 


Nature-Notes 

leaf  —  the  aroma  that  haunts  her 
gown's  green  hem  brushing  here  and 
there  the  edges  of  the  woods ;  and  by 
the  sunlight  basking  white  on  the 
hilltops  —  the  slow  silver  of  her  de 
laying  feet. 


Still  are  the  forests  barren  of  all  buds, 
And  all  the  woods  of  wildflowers;    but, 

behold! 

Within  a  week  or  less  the  invading  hosts, 
Myriad  and  many  as  the  stars  of  heaven, 
Shall  utterly  invade  these  woodland  ways, 
When  every  foot  of  soil  shall  show  and 

boast 

Its  bud  or  blossom  or  balsam-beaked  leaf, 
Bragging  of  beauty  to  the  passer-by, 
Beggared  and  bankrupt  of  all  words  to 

praise. 


Come,  let  us  forth  and  homage  her, 
Clothed  on  with  warmth  and  musk  and 

myrrh, 

The  indescribable  odor  wild  that  clings 
Around  her  like  a  garment :  let  us  sing 

185 


Nature-Notes 

Songs  to  her,  glad  as  grass  and  all  the 

things 
Exulting     in     her     presence  —  greening 

things 
And   airy   that   have  gotten   them   new 

wings : 
Come,  let  us  forth  and  give  our  praise  to 

Spring. 


The  flowers  now  are  holding  their 
public  pomps  and  pageants  making 
gay  the  worlds  of  the  woods.  Warm 
scents  of  rain  and  of  sun,  of  loam  and 
of  leaf  courier  their  coming,  and  the 
wind  is  a  herald's  bugle,  bannered 
with  the  blue  of  heaven,  sounding 
before  them. 


My  mind  's  washed  clean  by  the  wind  that 

brings 
The  wild  warm  scent  of  the  woods  on  its 

wings, 

The  racy  sweets  of  the  bourgeonings 
Of  flower  and  tree  and  brier  that  clings. 
186 


Nature-Notes 

My    head    I    bare    to    the    winds    that 

blare, 
That  blow  from  the  purple  heart  of  the 

cloud, 

-    Now  low,  now  loud, 
From  the  heart  of  the  cloud,  like  a  giant's 

hair, 

Blown  everywhere, 
Blue-black  and  low, 
Heavy  with  rain  and  the  pearly  glow 
Of  sunlight  gulfing  its  deeps  with  snow. — 
Blow,  winds  of  spring!    O  blow,  blow, 

blow! 

Caress  my  brow  like  fingers  fair, 
Cool  fingers  touching  my  eyes  and  hair ! 
Blow,  spring  winds,  blow !  O  blow,  blow, 

blow ! 

Blow  out  of  my  soul  all  cark  and  care ! 
And  out  of  my  heart,  aye!    out  of  my 

heart,  despair! 


The    wind    goes    groping    among    the 
trees, 

Telling  the  bees 

Where  the  little  buds  open  that  no  one 
sees. 

187 


Nature-Notes 

At  intervals,  as  softly  cool  it  blows, 

The  wild-plum  shows 
Its  bee-swarm'd  clusters  'twixt  the  wood's 
dark  rows. 


The  sluggish  snake  now  basks  his  uncoiled 

length 

Beside  the  windings  of  the  water-course ; 
With  torpid  beady  eyes  he  lies  and  dreams 
Where  warm  the  sunlight  sleeps.  Near  by 

him  claws 
Of  some  strange  beast  have  marked  the 

furrowed  sand 

As  with  deep  talonings  of  mighty  rage 
Here  on  the  wild  road  where  it  fords  the 

stream. 


Rocked  by  the  winds  of  March  the  trees 

become, 

Each  one  a  maddened  pendulum 
Swayed  every  way  as  if  in  time 
To  some  wild  music,  roaring  rhyme 
Shouted  from  storm-tossed  hill  to  hill, 
Amid  the  forests  that  are  never  still. 


What  dance  is  wilder  than  that  the 
dead  leaves  dance,  made  frantic  by 
188 


Nature-Notes 

the  winds  of  March?  What  music 
more  welcome  than  the  bucksaw 
sound  of  the  hylas  chorusing  a  song 
in  praise  of  spring  in  the  flooded 
bottom-lands  and  marshy  pools  of 
the  valleys?  Or  what  is  rosier 
than  the  rosy  tassels  that  tag  the 
sugar  tree  when  it  lifts  itself  like 
a  banner  unfurled  in  the  very  fore 
front  of  the  advancing  armies  of 
spring? 


March  27th,  1905.  I  found  the 
hepatica  with  its  twisted  hairy  stems 
and  three-lobed  leaves  blooming  re 
tiredly  at  the  protecting  base  of  an 
old  beech,  hidden,  or  trying  to  hide, 
in  a  rooty  angle  of  lichen  and  leaves 
and  moss.  A  peculiarity  of  these 
hepatica  blossoms  is  that  they  are  a 
delicate  pink,  almost  white,  and  not 
blue  —  the  color  generally  attributed 
to  the  liverwort. 

180 


Nature-Notes 

Think  of  the  strength  of  the  sprout 
ing  germ  of  such  a  tender  and  frail 
thing  as  a  wildflower !  lifting  or  dis 
placing  a  clod,  or  even  a  small  stone 
often  with  its  pointed  bud;  piercing 
with  its  slender  green  the  superim 
posed  layers  of  dead  leaves  as  a 
needle  might;  and  not  till  they 
are  pierced,  unfolding  the  large 
beauty  of  its  leaf.  Thus  to-day  I 
noted  many  of  the  leaves  of  the 
adder's-tongue,  or  dog's-tooth  violet, 
collared  or  ruffed  curiously  with  a 
collar  or  ruff  of  dead  leaves,  which 
they  had  neatly  and  completely 
pierced. 

The  spicewood  bush  is  now  in 
bloom.  Its  yet  leafless  branches  are 
illuminated  with  many  fuzzy  little 
flowers,  lights  of  pale  amber,  aro 
matic  as  some  oriental  pastil. 

The  gold-green  blooms  of  the  spicebush 

burn 

Lighting  the  wood  at  every  turn ; 
190 


Nature-Notes 

Like  the  starry  tufts  of  the  sassafras, 
Whose  fragrance  thrills  us  as  we  pass, 
From  out  their  patens  of  gold  they  spill 
A  faint  aroma  that  haunts  the  hill. 


How  late  joy  is  in  coming !  late  as 
is  the  young  hickory  to  don  its  rai 
ment  of  green  and  gold;  whereas  it 
should  be  rathe  as  the  redbud  that, 
a  month  ago,  flaunted  a  mass  of  re 
joicing  rose,  making  happy  the  other 
wise  barren  forestside:  or  as  the 
pawpaw  that,  days  ago,  gladdened 
the  woods  with  its  bells  of  deep,  dark 
bronze,  belfrying  its  leafless  boughs 
where  the  winds  hung,  like  bell- 
ringers,  ringing  the  month's  mar 
riage  peals. 


Placid  and  pure  and  clean  the  wild-phlox 

blooms 
Make  glad  the  hillsides  and  deep-wooded 

banks 

191 


Nature-Notes 

Of  wandering  creeks.     Beneath  the  old, 

gray  beech 

The  Mayapples,  in  myriad  colonies, 
Advance-guards  of  the  wildflowers'  fol 
lowing  hosts, 
Lift  up  their  green-and-umber  tents  of 

leaves, 
Each  unrolled  tent  tipped  with  its  furled- 

up  flag, 
Its    pea-like    bud,    a    knob    of    delicate 

green, 
Wherein  the  milk-white,  —  blazoned  deep 

with  gold,  — 
Of  its  broad  bloom,  its  banner  's  packed 

away. 
While  at  the  wood's  edge,  at  the  turn  o* 

the  lane, 

A  clear,  a  chilly  crimson  in  its  keys, 
Its    million    blooms,    the    maple    fairly 

glows, 

Making  a  crystal  blur  of  rosy  gloom  ; 
Wherein    the   bluebird,    like    a    sapphire 

closed 

In  an  enormous  ruby,  sits  and  sings ; 
Upon    his    back   and    on    his    wayward 

wings 

The  lapis-lazuli  o'  the  April  sky. 
APRIL  5th,  1905. 

192 


Nature-Notes 

Who  is  it  knows 

How  the  huckleberry  grows, 

Blooms  and  blows  ?  — 

Only  the  bird  that  sings  and  sings, 

Waving  its  wings, 

Saying,  "  Come  see  it  where  it  swings ! 

Ruddy  green  and  amber  rose, 

See,  oh,  see, 

In  honor  of  Spring, 

Under  this  tree, 

See  how  they  ring 

Their  tiny  bells,  that  cluster  out, 

Silvery  red,  in  a  rosy  rout." 


In  the  poorest  soil  of  the  hillside, 
amid  rocks,  felled  wood,  and  mosses, 
I  found  the  bird's-foot  violet  with  its 
pansy-like  blossoms,  purple  and  blue, 
scattered  and  glowing  like  vari-col- 
ored  sapphires.  And  under  the  April 
crimson  that  the  oaks  had  donned 
the  yellow  puccoon  made  bright  the 
barren  ways  of  the  waste  hillside. 
On  May  the  ist,  I  found  its  tubular 
gold,  like  little  trumpets  of  the  elves, 
13  193 


Nature-Notes 

held  up,  as  if  ready  to  salute  me  with 
golden  announcement,  by  every  road 
side  and  in  the  grassless  places  of  the 
hills. 

The  bright  star-of-Bethlehem,  im 
maculate  white,  fixed  its  shining  eye 
upon  me,  —  like  the  bright  eyes  of 
adventure,  —  here  and  there,  looking 
out  of  every  grassy  place  I  passed  as 
from  a  green,  small  firmament  all  its 
own. 


May  5th,  1905.  The  dead-leaf  car 
pet  of  the  underwoods,  —  covered 
white  with  the  dropped  petals  of  the 
fallen  and  drifted  blossoms  of  the  dog 
woods,  —  is  as  if  it  were  flaked  with 
snow.  Here  and  there  amid  their 
white  the  tall,  spadixed  blossoms  of 
the  Indian-turnip  are  seen,  green  and 
purple,  or  bluish  white  striped  with 
clear  gray-green. 

The  wood,  this  morning,  is  in 
vaded  of  snails.  An  elfin  army,  black, 
194 


Nature-Notes 

gray,  and  brown,  thrusting  forth  their 
horns,  like  some  strange  weapon  of 
defence,  their  shells  looking  like  so 
many  queer  knapsacks,  they  storm  the 
stumps  of  the  trees,  swarm  over  the 
roads,  and  scatter  their  skirmishers 
among  the  rocks  and  roots  of  the 
forest,  investing  everything  before 
them,  leaf  and  blossom  and  fungus. 
Three  I  found  attacking  a  single 
leaf,  two  thirds  of  which  had  already 
disappeared.  At  another  place  a 
great  reddish  brown  snail  was  busy 
devouring  what  seemed  at  first  to  be 
a  caterpillar  and  which  afterwards 
proved  to  be  a  long,  fuzzy,  yellow 
blossom ;  the  watery  red  of  the  snail 
and  the  golden-white  of  the  blossom 
producing  quite  a  peculiar  color 
effect. 

What    if    curses    should    fall    as 

thickly  as  snails  come  after  a  rainy 

night  in  early  May?     Irresistible  as 

the  impulse  of  spring  to  leaf  and  blos- 

195 


Nature-Notes 

som  and  bear  and  bless  us  with  the 
beautiful  —  what  if  this  impulse 
should  suddenly  take  the  opposite 
course,  producing,  instead  of  the 
beautiful,  the  terrible  and  the  hor 
rible,  like  this  slimy  vermin  swarm 
ing  over  the  woodland  ways ! 


Who  will  tell  me  why  ants  are  con 
tinually  and  persistently  climbing  the 
trees?  wandering  here  and  there, 
irresolutely,  indefinitely,  at  a  loss  as 
to  what  they  are  seeking,  over  the 
flat  broad  surfaces  of  the  leaves ;  and 
at  length  reaching  the  topmost  twig 
of  a  branch,  or  a  leaf,  or  of  the  tree, 
turning  and  retracing  their  way  just 
as  hurriedly  downward?  There  are 
no  aphides,  no  insect  kine  for  them 
to  stroke  and  milk ;  no  honey-dew,  no 
gummy  sweetness  perceptible  that 
might  attract  them.  Can  it  be  that 
the  fascination,  the  curiosity  to  see 
196 


Nature-Notes 

how  the  earth  looks  from  a  great 
height  lures  and  compels  them,  too, 
as  it  often  does  us  mortals? 


May  1 8th,  1905.  The  strawberry- 
bush  (running  euonymus)  is  now  in 
full  bloom ;  covered  with  five-petaled, 
flat,  fleshy,  green  flowers  which  shall 
eventually  evolve  the  crimson-burred 
pods,  packed  with  scarlet  seeds,  of 
early  autumn. 

Like  a  carcanet  of  living  and 
graceful  emerald,  the  green  snake 
glides  across  my  way;  silently  sinu 
ous,  moving  swiftly  to  the  upper  twigs 
of  the  euonymus;  under  which,  lum 
bering  along  slowly  beneath  its 
mottled  and  incasing  shell,  a  land- 
turtle  rustles  over  and  through  the 
leaves  —  an  ungainly  bulk,  whose 
rubber-colored  neck  and  feet  and 
tail  protrude  grotesquely  from  the 
shell,  into  which  at  a  movement 
197 


Nature-Notes 

of  my  foot  they  are  instantly 
withdrawn. 

I  found  the  shin-leaf  with  its 
rocket-like  flowers  of  white-blue  blos 
soming  in  the  open  woods  to-day. 
On  it,  like  a  Japanese  design,  sat 
a  butterfly,  wings  outspread,  the 
sumptuous  coloring  of  which  defies 
description. 

The  first  heavy-headed  stalks  of 
the  beard's-tongue,  lilac  and  white, 
plume  with  orchid-like  blossoms  the 
fields  and  the  forest  ways. 

Here  on  the  slope  of  the  hill,  shel 
tering  under  the  oaks,  fresh  as  the 
break  of  day,  and  breathing  rainy 
fragrance  around,  I  found  the  innu 
merable  wild-rose  blooming,  each  one 
a  round  pink  yawn  of  perfume,  young 
and  fresh  and  sweet  as  the  young, 
sweet,  dewy  beauty  of  a  baby's  mouth. 

The  wild-potato  vine,  too,  I  found 
in  full  bloom;  its  large  chalices, 
white  cups  of  opaque  crystal,  spotting 


Nature-Notes 

and  dotting  the  open  fields  and  vistas 
of  the  woods.  The  wild-parsley, 
with  its  lacy,  gracefully  penciled 
umbels,  hedged  with  tall  gold  the 
banks  of  a  creek  that  slid  tinkling 
from  the  gloom,  from  the  hillside 
where,  in  patches,  among  the  rocks, 
like  outcroppings  of  gold,  shining  in 
the  sunlight,  yellowed  the  blossoms 
of  the  puccoon. 


The  blossoms  of  the  shin-leaf,  hued 
and  shaped  like  forget-me-nots,  on 
the  tops  of  their  stiff,  prim-looking 
stalks,  tower  gracefully  from  the 
low  whorl  of  their  large  mullein-like 
leaves.  Not  far  away  the  goat's-rue, 
with  its  papilionaceous  flowers,  look 
ing  like  many  saffron  and  rose  col 
ored  butterflies,  makes  glorious  the 
rocky  hillside  sloping  to  the  little 
creek  singing,  like  a  happy  child  amid 
its  gathered  wildflowers,  unseen  in 
the  woody  hollow. 
199 


Nature-Notes 

Snug  in  its  curled-up  leaf  the  spider 
hides,  safe  from  the  searching  mud- 
wasp,  whining  impatiently,  flitting 
from  flower  to  leaf.  The  blue-winged 
wasp  and  the  yellow-winged  grass 
hopper  seem  to  be  the  only  insects 
awake  here  where  in  countless  num 
bers  the  wild  onion  blooms.  Like 
the  insects,  the  blossoms  too  seem 
asleep;  their  six-petaled,  star-shaped 
flowers,  pale  lavender,  almost  white, 
dot  the  distance  dimly.  Their  knob- 
like  seeds  on  their  tall,  stiff,  succulent 
stems  give  a  polka-dot  effect  to  the 
tall  grass  —  white  dottings  on  a 
green  background.  Here  in  the 
dense  underwoods  the  wood-dove 
nests.  Far  away,  mournful  in  the 
nooning,  I  heard  her  cooing. 


Here  and  there  in  the  hollows  of 
the  woods  stout  and  stocky  toadstools, 
marble-gray  and  white,  look  like  so 
200 


Nature-Notes 

many  tents,  or  temples,  that  the  imps 
of  the  moon  and  the  starlight  have 
raised.  In  the  shadows,  along  the 
wood  ways,  damp  and  dumpy,  fat 
and  lean,  white  and  yellow,  terra 
cotta  and  crimson,  green  and  blue, 
poisonous  looking,  and,  when  not 
bloated,  beautiful  as  strange  blos 
soms  are  beautiful  of  the  ranker 
weeds,  pearl-  and  pink-gilled,  slender 
or  thick-stemmed,  they  orb  their 
cones  and  discs  —  grotesque  as  the 
work  of  gnomes. 


The  Robin's-plantain  lifts  its  lilac 
round  of  ray-flowers,  looking  down, 
like  a  yellow-pupiled  eye,  upon  the 
snail  that  clings  gnawing  on  a  wild- 
rose  near  by,  as  melancholy  clings 
gnawing  at  a  heart.  Suddenly  I  hear 
the  Carolina  wren  singing  in  the  top 
of  a  haw  tree,  "  Cheer  up,  and  cheer 
up,  and  cheer  up !  " 
201 


Nature-Notes 

That  trees  have  an  intelligent  as 
well  as  a  sentient  life  to  me  is  evident 
and  provable.  That  plants  have  a 
sense  perception  of  taste  and  feeling 
has  been  proven.  If  sense  percep 
tion,  why  not  thought  perception  as 
well?  About  a  month  ago,  early 
in  May,  sitting  under  this  oak  on  the 
top  of  Kenwood  Hill,  I  conceived 
the  idea  of  stripping  the  leaves  from 
one  of  its  branches  and  of  seeing 
what  within  a  month  would  happen. 
I  carefully  cut  away  every  leaf  at  its 
base  where  attached  to  the  twigs, 
doing  no  injury  to  the  young  acorns 
that  were  just  forming.  Returning 
to  the  same  place  a  month  thereafter 
I  find  that  the  bough  has  put  forth 
new  leaves  —  tenderly  slender  and 
palely  delicate,  invalid-looking  leaves 
—  smaller  and  less  sturdy  it  is  true 
than  the  ones  which  I  removed,  but 
leaves  nevertheless.  It  is  to  me  as 
if  the  tree  had  become  conscious  of 
202 


Nature-Notes 

the  bareness  of  this  one  bough,  and 
the  parent  stem  had  corrected  its 
condition,  clothing  it  with  green 
again. 

Now  the  question  that  arises  in  my 
mind  is  —  how  did  the  tree  know 
that  this  particular  limb  had  been 
stripped  of  its  leaves?  It  certainly 
must  have  known  it  or  it  never  would 
have  put  forth  new  leaves  again  so 
early  in  the  season.  There  must  be 
some  manner  of  intelligent  communi 
cation  between  the  outmost  branches 
and  the  roots  of  the  tree,  its  fibrous 
heart  or  brain  or  nervous  centre, 
whatever  you  call  it,  that  is  capable 
of  receiving  information  of,  and  then 
of  remedying,  some  accidental  de 
fect,  not  vital,  in  its  body.  In  fact 
I  truly  believe  that  trees  are  capable 
of  thought  the  same  as  animals 
are,  though,  of  course,  in  a  lesser 
degree. 

JUNE  22d,  1905. 

203 


Nature-Notes 

Clothed  in  redundancy  of  bloom 
and  beauty  June  meets  me  at  every 
turn  of  this  leafy  lane,  offering  me 
now  a  spray  of  red  half-ripe  black 
berries,  now  a  handful  of  herbs 
mixed  with  the  white  ulms  of  the  wild 
hydrangea,  and  now  a  double  armful 
of  elder  blossoms,  redolent  of  sun  and 
rain  and  imprisoning  within  their 
starry  stems  a  whole  summer  of  hot 
perfume. 


The   liquid   note   of  the   thrush  —  what 
words  can  describe  it? 

Above  me  now  I  hear  it,  dropping  its 
globed  harmony, 

Golden-bubbled,    crystalline    clear,    inde 
scribably  deep. 

Questioningly,  answeringly  its  music  falls, 

Notes  of  antiphonal  gold, 

Full  of  youth  and  joy; 

A  tree-spirit,  seemingly, 

Voicing  the  innocence,  the  exuberance,  the 
beauty  of  invisible, 

Inviolable  things;  wild  myths  that  popu 
late 

204 


Nature-Notes 

The  world  of  the  woods  and  streams. 
Pensively,  hopefully  now  it  pleads, 
Pleads  for  the  dreams  that  haunt  the  hearts 

of  the  trees, 

The  soul  of  the  woodland  — 
Dreams  that  it  sees  from  its  leafy  height, 
Its  breezy  eyrie  of  green, 
Dreams  that  it  sees  and  knows. 
And  now  for  me  its  music,  too,  takes 

form, 

Visible,  material  form: 
And  I  seem  to  see  — 
A  presence,  young  with  the  youth  that 

never  ages, 
A  Faun,  a  Spirit,  slender  and  naked  as 

Spring, 
Deep  in  the  forest,  approaching  and  now 

retreating, 

Blowing  his  flute  of  flowers, 
Gleaming,  vanishing  far  in  the  verdurous 

glooms : 

A  Spirit,  happy  with  all  that  is  happy, 
Communicated  joy  of  all  that  is  beauty, 
The  wild,  wild  beauty  it  drew  from  the 

breasts  of  its  mother, 
Its  beautiful  mother,  Nature: 
A  phantom  supernal  in  loveliness,  respon 
sive  and  tender, 
205 


Nature-Notes 

Diaphanous,  hyaline,  translucently  green 

and  golden, 
Golden  and  green  like  the  sound  of  a 

thrush's  fluting: 
A  form  of  light  like  that  which  shimmers 

and  shades 
Under  the  day-deep  boughs  of  the  myriad 

beeches ; 
Flitting,  wavering  now  like  a  joy  that 

dances, 
Silent,     alone     in     the     heart     of     the 

forest, 
Shimmering,    glimmering    here    like   the 

ray  that  stars  the  ripples, 
Sun-speared,  flashing  and  fading  on  wood 
land  waters, 
Falling,    calling,     foamy-lipped,    like    a 

Naiad, 
Lost  in  the  leaves,  the  remotest  deeps  of 

the  forest. 
Like  the  rain  that  tips  the  point  of  a  poplar 

leaf, 
Trembling,  a  liquid  star,  to  its  twinkling 

fall, 
There  it  glances  and  glints,  tinkling  with 

silver  the  silence; 
There  it  hazes  like  heat  that  haunts  the 

summer  meadows, 
206 


Nature-Notes 

To  whose  kisses  the  wildflowers  open  their 

wondering  and  fragrant  eyes : 
A  glimmering  form  it  leads  me,  musical 

ever  of  motion, 
From  wild  wood  place  to  place, 
Retreating,  advancing,  luring  from  vista 

to  vista, 
Far  and  far  in  the  forest,  the  haunted 

deeps  of  the  forest, 
To  slay  me  there,  perhaps,  at  last, 
At  last  with  some  last,  long  and  lovelier 

note, 

Ringing  as  gold 
And  deeper  in  magic  than  the  myths  of 

old. 


The  milkweed's  ball  of  lilac-col 
ored  blossoms  swings,  heavy  with  the 
wet,  by  the  wayside.  In  it  a  striped 
beetle  burrows,  drunken  with  the 
honeyed  perfume  that  filters  from  its 
hundred  mouths  of  nectar. 

Guidons  of  fairy  cavalry,  slender 

gold    and    emerald    and    azure,    the 

dragon-flies  twinkle  hither  and  thither 

or  rest  alert  of  wing  on  the  wild-flag 

207 


Nature-Notes 

blades  that  rim,  as  it  were  with  an 
abatis  of  green  swords,  the  woodland 
water,  the  way  to  which  is  literally 
lost  in  and  overwhelmed  with  the 
bugled  stalks  of  the  jewel  weed  or 
touch-me-not. 

A  wood-thrush  flutes  overhead. 
And  again  I  think  —  all  the  sweet 
words  in  the  world  married  to  melody 
by  the  greatest  musical  genius  could 
not  express  to  me  what  its  few  simple 
but  inspired  notes  express  —  of  ex 
pectation,  of  woodland  mystery, 
dreams,  and  wonder-visions  never  to 
be  seen,  remote,  unattainably  beauti 
ful.  —  O  indescribable  song  of  the 
thrush !  O  June !  O  love !  O  youth ! 
of  you,  of  you  it  speaks  to  me!  and 
of  the  lost,  the  irremediable;  the 
indescribably  fair  and  far  and  yet  to 
be  found,  the  mysteriously  hidden, 
the  undiscoverable,  calling  me  in  the 
voice  of  all  my  longings  through  the 
cadenced  aisles  of  the  forest. 
208 


Nature-Notes 

Crystal  gleaming,  quicksilver- 
sparkling  brilliants,  moonbeam  jewels 
for  sylvan  spirits  to  braid  in  their 
bark-brown  tresses,  or  string  in 
starry  carcanets  of  liquid  spar  around 
their  throats  of  wildflower  white 
ness,  are  the  drops  of  rounded  rain 
caught  and  held  in  the  green  hollows 
of  the  leaves  that  the  rays  of  the 
afternoon  sun  love  to  linger  upon,  im 
pregnating  them  with  cool  white 
fires. 

Already  are  the  burning  bushes 
(the  running  euonymus)  covered 
with  little  round  warty  capsules  of 
beryl-green  that  in  September  shall 
astonish  this  path  with  color — glow 
ing  into  ruby  and  rose,  making  a 
diminutive  sunset  of  fragmentary 
scarlet  under  the  dark  vault  of  tangled 
thorns  and  limbs  of  unescapable 
beeches. 


14  209 


Nature-Notes 

The  woodpecker!  hear  him,  the  red- 
capped, 

Driving  home  his  bill ! 

Driving  deliberately  home  his  bill 

In  the  top  limb  of  yonder  tree. 

Swiftly,  instantly,  repeatedly  it  sounds, 

Resonant,  distinct  in  the  hollow  wood.  — 

What  a  prospect  from  such  an  outlook, 

What  a  world  of  limb  and  leaf, 

Ever  moving,  restless  in  its  rest, 

Must  that  be  from  where  he  raps ! 

That  tallest  giant  of  them  all, 

That  poplar  there 

Where  so  unconcernedly  he  clings. 

What  exultation  of  height! 

What  intoxication  of  cloud  and  sky! 

Of  wind  and  rapture  in  the  blowing  hair 
of  the  tree! 

Its  rocking  and  nodding  head !  — 

Oh,  that  I  too  had  wings ! 


The  crawfish  in  his  tower  of  ooze  and 

clay  — 

What  knows  he  of  the  day ! 
Like  some  crabb'd  misanthrope, 
Sans  joy,  sans  hope, 

210 


Nature-Notes 

He  sits  within  his  pit 
Seeing  no  part  of  heaven,  that  azures  over 
it. 


The  lizard  streaks  itself  from  view, 
swiftly  —  a  noise  of  clutching  and 
hurrying  claws,  —  around  the  dark- 
gray  trunk  of  the  oak;  bark-colored 
itself,  it  is  hardly  distinguishable 
from  the  lichens  that  scrawl  curiously 
with  wandering  hieroglyphics  the 
sunless  side  on  which  it  hides. 


Hag-tapers  bow  their  heads  i'  the  wind 
Like  candles  the  witches  bear ;  and,  thinned 
As  the  moonlight  is  where  a  soul  has 

sinned, 

Their  blossoms  look;   and  a  flower  red 
Blooms  near  them,  shaped  like  a  viper's 

head, 
A  blood-blotched  flower,   like  a  symbol 

pinned 

To  the  breast  of  a  gipsy  dagger-dead, 
A  damsel  frail  as  a  flower,  oh! 

211 


Nature-Notes 

June  29th,  1905.  Here  late  in 
June  bloom  the  black  cohosh  and  the 
butterfly-weed :  the  one  holding  high 
its  plumes  of  snowy-white,  like  some 
champion  of  the  woods;  the  other, 
umbels  of  flame,  splashing  as  with 
battle-stains  the  open  vistas  of  the 
trees. 

The  blue-black  wasp,  black-winged, 
its  two  orange-bright  feathers  flying 
from  its  head,  dashes  swiftly  by  — 
a  fairy  courier  bearing  dispatches 
from  Mab  to  Oberon :  alert,  undelay- 
ing,  fearless,  his  dagger  ever  ready, 
he  proceeds  determinedly  upon  his 
way. 

Some  snakes  are  beautiful,  others, 
hideous ;  I  have  met  with  both  kinds, 
never  molesting  them  if  they  exhib 
ited  no  signs  of  a  desire  to  molest  me. 
How  fearfully  some  of  them  are 
fashioned;  this  one,  for  instance, 
which  I  have  just  crushed  with  a 
stone,  short,  darkly  diamonded,  that, 
212 


Nature-Notes 

with   its   spreading  neck  and  head, 
gave  me  such  a  start  a  moment  ago. 

Here  where  the  twilight-colored  trunks  of 

trees, 
Mottled  with  lichen,  arch  the  twilight 

way, 
Where  every  crooked  bough,  swayed  by 

the  breeze, 
Now  seems  a  knotted  serpent,  viperous 

gray, 
Because  of  one  whose  flat  and  horrible 

head, 
Reared  in  my  woodland  way,  I  crushed 

to-day, 

Fanging  with  poison  its  own  side  instead 
Of  me  advancing  where  unseen  it  lay. 


The  purple  racemes  of  the  blazing 
star  and  the  cobalt  corymbs  of  the 
ironweed  are  torches  in  the  train  of 
Summer  advancing  over  the  hills. 
The  huckleberries  are  spilling  their 
fullness  at  her  feet;  and  the  black 
berries  and  wild  plums  heap  her  path 
213 


Nature-Notes 

with  ripening  abundance.  Old  Earth, 
in  fact,  is  trying  herself  again  in 
flowers  and  fruit,  and  the  world  is  a 
very  pleasant  place  to  be  in.  It  is  of 
very  little  consequence  what  we  have 
to  eat,  or  whether  we  have  too  little 
or  enough  or  too  much,  so  long  as  we 
have  many  beautiful  things  to  look 
upon.  I  don't  know  any  better  phil 
osophy  than  this. 


Silvered  with  sun  and  rain  the  hills  and 
vales, 

O'er  which  a  ragged  rim  of  thunder  trails, 

Show  like  some  lunar  landscape,  pearl  and 
frost, 

Crystaled  with  moon-dust  and  with  star- 
drift  crossed, 

Misted  of  silver  and  in  silver  lost. 


Elderberries  are  now  ripe;  hang 
ing  in  huge  clusters  of  polished  purple 
by  the  roadside  and  along  the  sumach 
brake  from  which  the  brick-colored 
214 


Nature-Notes 

plumes  of  the  sumach  are  thrust. 
Where  are  the  snows,  the  fragrant 
snows,  that  weighed  with  odorous 
white  each  elder-bush  but  yesterday? 
Surely  it  seems  but  yesterday  that  I 
passed  this  way  and  stopped  a  mo 
ment  to  gather  a  spray  from  the 
masses  that  banked  this  lane. 


August  loth.  The  large  golden 
touch-me-not,  blunt-spurred  and 
lemon-yellow,  and  the  tall  blue  bell- 
flower,  bluebell  blue,  make  a  wilder 
ness  of  color  on  the  shady  hillside, 
—  changing  kaleidoscopic  with  the 
seasons,  —  leading  precipitately  over 
rocks  and  roots  to  the  creek  that, 
swollen  clay-red  with  last  night's 
rain,  and  haunted  of  the  kingfisher 
and  the  small  green  heron,  flows 
slowly,  sluggishly  along,  heavy  with 
soil,  as  a  life  with  sins,  between  its 
weedy  and  sycamore  banks.  There 
215 


Nature-Notes 

is  a  warm,  damp,  green,  forest  odor 
of  wet  earth  and  leaves  and  weeds 
everywhere,  and  the  path  along  the 
stream  is  lost  in  the  dense,  high, 
succulent  stalks  of  the  jewel  weed 
hung  with  its  orange-colored,  red- 
freckled  horns,  brimming  with  rain 
—  veritable  vats  of  wild-honey  for 
the  bees  and  butterflies  to  drown 
themselves  in. 

Cleared  of  woodland,  the  hot  hill 
side  here  is  covered  with  the  blos 
soms  of  the  wild-bean ;  their  puckered 
pink,  dotting  thickly  the  thin,  pale 
grass  and  broom-sedge,  gives  the  hill 
side  the  appearance  of  being  spread 
with  an  old-fashioned,  single-pat 
terned  quilt  of  gigantic  proportions. 


To-day    a    month    ago, —  August 

1 4th,  —  I  gathered  and  enjoyed  the 

first    huckleberries    of    the    season. 

The  bushes  are  still  freighted  purple 

216 


Nature-Notes 

with  them,  purpler  and  larger  and 
sweeter  than  those  of  a  month  ago. 
To-day  also  I  gathered  luscious 
handfuls  of  wild  blackberries  in  the 
wood-ways,  along  the  roadside.  It 
seems  rather  late  for  berries  such  as 
the  huckleberry  and  the  blackberry 
now  that  pawpaws  are  beginning  to 
mellow  and  the  Chickasaw  plums 
to  redden  and  Summer  is  preparing 
to  bid  us  good-by. 


On  the  hilltop,  no  possible  pool  or 
creek  in  the  vicinity  from  which  they 
might  have  strayed  to  their  death, 
I  find  the  road,  for  the  distance  of 
many  yards,  strewn  with  the  dead 
bodies  of  a  number  of  small  frogs  — 
not  toads  —  but  small  green  frogs. 
Can  it  be  that  they  fell  with  this 
morning's  heavy  rain?  that,  as  I  have 
often  heard  but  never  believed,  here 
has  taken  place  a  peculiar,  an  un- 
217 


Nature-Notes 

usual    phenomenon,    which    scarcely 
seems  credible? 


Already  are  the  seeds  in  the  green, 
burred  pods  of  the  strawberry-bush 
orange-colored;  each  one  pluniply 
packed  in  its  own  little  corner,  closely 
together,  snugly  awaiting  the  fogs 
and  frosts  of  fall  that  shall  split  and 
divide  the  gnarly  capsule,  curling  and 
peeling  it  and  laying  bare  the  rounded 
scarlet  of  its  contents.  Seeds  that 
shall  glow  vermilion  with  the  ap 
proach  of  Autumn,  while  the  pods 
crimson  gradually,  rosily  as  Septem 
ber  drowses  on  towards  October. 


The  prim,  white  spikes  of  the 
lady's-tresses,  twisted  and  curled  as  if 
blown  by  the  wind,  are  slender  tapers 
in  the  wild  procession,  bannered 
with  gold  and  purple,  of  blossom 
ing  weeds,  that  crowds  and  caval- 
218 


Nature-Notes 

cades  the  briery  banks  of  the  branch 
that  twinkles  and  pearls  under  the 
overhanging  roots  of  a  chestnut  tree 
whose  green  and  thorny  burrs  already 
begin  to  strew  the  gravel  and  grass 
at  its  foot. 

The  haw,  too,  ruddying  its  round 
and  clustered  globes,  against  the  dark 
green  background  of  the  forest,  looks 
like  a  huge  bunch  of  holly,  emerald 
dotted  with  ruby,  that  the  Forest 
Folk  have  placed,  in  celebration  of 
some  festivity,  at  the  entrance  to  the 
wood. 


August  23d.  Thrust  over  a  tangle 
of  blackberry  and  green-brier  the 
spiraled  spikes  of  the  false  drag- 
onhead,  or  obedient  plant,  deeply 
heliotrope,  with  foxglove-shaped  blos 
soms,  arrest  my  gaze.  Each  blossom 
is  a  rosy  mouth  of  honey,  —  its 
lower  lip  and  its  throat  freckled  and 
219 


Nature-Notes 

streaked  with  purplish  pink,  —  on 
which  the  bees  kiss  themselves  to 
sleep,  drowsily  rumbling  all  the 
while. 

I  don't  know  of  any  flower  more 
distinguished  looking,  more  elegantly 
splendid,  ardent  with  the  ardor  that 
burns  and  beats  in  the  amorous  veins 
of  mid-August,  and  warm  with  the 
warmth  of  her  own  glowing  bosom, 
than  is  this  flower,  the  false  dragon- 
head,  that  in  a  riot  of  richly  blossom 
ing  weeds, —  goldenrod,  blazing-star, 
and  trumpet  weed,  —  the  roving  eye 
singles  out  as  one  might  a  plumed 
and  silken  prince  amid  his  suite,  mag 
nificent  with  velvet  and  vair,  of  su 
perbly-attired  attendants. 


The    flowering    spurge,    with    its 

masses     of     myosotis-like     calyces, 

starry-white,  makes  miniature  Milky 

Ways  here  and  there  in  the  summer 

220 


Nature-Notes 

fields,  quivering  with  the  visible  heat. 
Scattered  'mid  the  larger  pink  blos 
soms  of  the  Bouncing-Bet,  a  strayed 
cluster  of  this  euphorbia  glints  and 
glimmers  now  and  then  like  the 
nebula  in  Lyra,  lost  in  a  firmament  of 
weeds  and  flowers. 


The  curious,  clay-colored  mole- 
cricket,  with  its  little  paw-like  claws 
pushing  its  stealthy  way  through  the 
damp  creek  clay  and  sand,  frequently 
fools  me  with  its  shrill,  high  cry,  per 
sistent,  piercing,  coming,  seemingly, 
from  no  discoverable  where.  One 
would  imagine  that  the  earth  through 
which  it  tunnels  its  narrow  gallery 
would  smother,  or,  at  least,  muffle 
the  sound,  but  it  does  not.  Shrill  and 
distinct  it  rises  in  the  summer  silence, 
louder  even  than  the  twilight  sound 
of  its  brother,  the  climbing  cricket, 
whose  wings  vibrate  pensively,  plain- 
221 


Nature-Notes 

tively,  on  the  concealing  side  of  a 
sassafras  or  green-brier  leaf. 


The  old   tree,   on   which   the   man   was 

hanged,  sighed  to  itself:  — 
"  Alas !  why  am  I  made  an  instrument  of 

violent  death? 
What  have  I  done  that  I  should  be  so 

punished  ? 

Made  a  participant  in  such  a  crime? 
I,  whose  life  has  evermore  been  one  of 

peace  and  love: 
Whose  mind  has  ever  been  employed  with 

thoughts  of  mercy: 
Whose  arms  have  always  been  stretched 

forth 

In  kindness  and  protection, 
Sheltering  the  baby  blossoms, 
The  shy,  the  tender,  the  timid, 
The  wild  things  of  the  woods, 
That  love  to  nestle  and  lie  at  my  mossy 

foot: 

I,  whose  limbs  have  unselfishly  made, 
Year  after  year, 
A  quiet  cirque  of  coolth  and  comfort  for 

the  weary  traveler, 
Hot  and  dusty  from  the  road, 

222 


Nature-Notes 

Refreshing  and  restoring  him  with  the 

soothing  whisper, 
The  lullabying  lilt  of  my  leaves : 
My  verdurous  bosom  the  home  and  haunt 

of  unstudied  song,  — 
Birds  and  breezes  rejoicing  in  its  shelter 
ing  and  maternal  amplitude. 
Ah  me!    henceforward  will  Beauty  and 

Love  avoid  me, 
Frequent  visitors  before ! 
And    Fear    and    Hate    tenant    in    my 

boughs. 

The  Dryad,  who  dwelt  in  my  heart, 
Its  beautiful  and  innocent  inhabitant,  is 

fled  away. 
No  more  will  the  loveliness   of  things 

within  me  and  about  me 
Be  as  it  was  before. 
Accursed  am  I  among  trees ! 
Accursed  with  the  curse  of  murder! 
The     contact     and     contamination     of 

crime ! 

Accursed  with  the  stigma  of  slaughter! 
And  accursed  shall  I  ever  remain  through 

the  crime  of  man, 
The  most  cruel,  the  most  destructive,  the 

most  ferocious  of  all  animals. 
Would  now  that  some  devastating  bolt, 
223 


Nature-Notes 

Blindingly  launched  from  yonder  ap 
proaching  cloud, 

Might  fell  me,  thunderingly,  to  earth! 

Making  me  really  that  which  I  feel  that  I 
am  become  — 

A  horrible  thing,  twisted  and  gnarled  and 
black, 

Hideously  crippled  and  scarred, 

Blasted  and  branded,  as  the  brow  of  Cain, 

With  withering,  with  elemental  fire: 

Laying  me  prone;  or  leaving  a  towering 
and  tortured  trunk, 

A  blackened  shape, 

In  the  shuddering  and  rejecting  forest  — 

A  trysting  place  for  Murder, 

A  roost  for  obscene  things, 

Buzzards,  carrion-crows,  and  owls." 


August  25th.  In  the  sunny  places, 
among  the  open  fields,  and  along  the 
dry  banks  of  the  weedy  creeks,  the 
wild  senna,  orbed  and  richly  yellow, 
glows  like  spilled  gold  —  doubloons 
scattered  or  lost  by  the  marauder 
Month,  each  piece  centred  and  stained 
224 


Nature-Notes 

with  red,  spotted,  as  it  were,  with 
blood  —  the  blood  of  wounded  and 
dying  Summer. 

The  stalk  of  the  false  Solomon's 
Seal  is  tipped  and  bent  over  by  its 
bunch  of  currant-colored  berries,  a 
polished  and  glassy  crimson.  How 
bright  they  look  held  up  or  leaning 
from  the  masses  of  dark  green  under 
growth  of  the  forest  where  there  is 
no  other  sign  of  color  to  relieve  the 
green  except  the  ruddy  horns  of  the 
touch-me-nots. 

The  woolly  white  of  the  boneset, 
heavy  with  dew;  the  fuzzy  yellow  of 
the  goldenrod,  drowsy  with  bees ;  and 
the  ragged,  butterfly-haunted  purple 
of  the  ironweed,  encumber  the  sun 
tanned  arms  of  late  August  as  she 
makes  her  way  slowly  through  brier 
and  berry  and  thorn,  burr  and  blos 
som  and  fungus,  to  the  summer's 
close,  the  marigold  garden  where  she 
shall  deliver  her  burden  with  a  sigh 
is  225 


Nature-Notes 

to   fruit-stained   September   and  lay 
her  down  to  sleep. 


Where  like  an  angry  tyrant  roars  the  sea, 
Pulling  his  yeasty  beard,  upon  his  throne 
Of  iron  crags;    and  where,  like  storm- 
lights  strewn, 

The  baleful  stars  redden  tempestuously, 
I  see  him  stand,  blind  Winter,  all  alone, 
Wild  hair  and  beard,  like  snow,  about  him 
blown. 


What  boots  it  to  keep  saying 
That  "  life  's  a  hollow  farce  "? 

That  "  men  are  fools  "  ?  that  "  praying 
Helps  not,  nor  doth  remorse  "  ? 

What  boots  it  to  keep  dwelling 
On  grief  and  sin  and  shame? 

The  old,  old  story  telling, 

"The  end  for  all's  the  same"? 

Who  says  that  He,  the  Power 

That  made  us,  as  a  rule 
Made  fools  with  farce  for  dower, 

He  only  is  the  fool. 
226 


Nature-Notes 

It  is  not  very  frequently  that  we 
find  the  Indian-pipe  in  this  locality. 
But  to-day  I  came  upon  it  while 
walking  along  an  abandoned  wood- 
road  and  admiring  the  various  col 
ored  fungi  that  dotted  the  wood  and 
exuded  from  the  boles  and  stumps  of 
trees,  such  as  the  Cinnabar  Fungus 
and  the  Sulphury  Polypous,  like  an 
enormous  yellow  ruff.  Among  the 
many  mushrooms  I  recognized  the 
poisonous  but  beautiful  Fly  Aminita, 
gracefully  poised  on  its  slender  stem, 
its  top  a  lemon-yellow  patched  here 
and  there  with  delicate  white  scales; 
the  edible  Chantarelle,  of  a  uniform 
yolk-yellow  color ;  the  Green  Russula 
and  the  Masked  Tricholoma,  pearly 
gray  or  brown,  both  of  them  snail- 
eaten  and  both  of  them  esculents.  In 
fact  the  chill  mists  and  dews  of  late 
summer  seemed  to  have  summoned 
up  from  the  earth  all  the  grotesque 
forms  that  fancy  dreams  of,  and  scat- 
227 


Nature-Notes 

tered  them  among  the  drowsy  trees. 
Among  them,  solitary  as  a  spirit 
among  imps  and  gnomes,  delicate, 
transparent,  as  it  were  of  virgin  ala 
baster,  the  Ghost-flower  lifted  up  its 
fragile  stem,  its  flower-head  waxen 
white,  bent  as  if  in  meditation  or 
grief.  It  seemed  to  me  the  melan 
choly  phantom  of  some  sad  wild- 
flower  returned  to  earth  to  haunt  the 
spot  it  had  once  bloomed  in  and  to 
muse  upon  its  past  loveliness  and 
happiness  there. 

The  place  was  full  of  a  pallid,  a 
shadowy  beauty;  mossy  and  dark 
and  silent  save  for  the  veery's  occa 
sional  note,  —  remote  and  elusive  as 
a  note  blown  on  a  pipe  by  a  young 
Faun  in  the  green  intricacies  of  the 
forest,  —  and  the  quiet,  scarcely 
audible  murmur  of  a  stream,  trick 
ling  thinly,  as  if  afraid  of  its  own 
sound,  down  dark  rocks,  dimly  drip 
ping,  and  under  a  bank  brambled  and 
228 


Nature-Notes 

spired  here  and  there  with  the  tall, 
pink-flowered  stalks  of  the  horsemint 
where  the  sunlight  faintly  filtered 
through  the  thickly  matted  leaves. 
It  was  a  place  for  wildwood  ghosts 
and  dreams,  both  of  which  I  found, 
hidden  from  the  eyes  of  men,  — 
sweet,  sorrowful  ghosts  that  would 
not  let  me  go. 


The  cardinal-flower's  scarlet  flashes 
and  flames  through  the  weeds  and 
bushes,  arresting  the  eye  and  holding 
it  as  a  redbird  might,  suddenly  alight 
ing  before  one.  Fierce  as  the  frag 
ment  of  some  war-banner,  bathed  in 
the  blood  of  battle,  caught  on  the 
thorns  and  briers  as  it  swept  wildly 
by  in  onset  or  retreat,  it  flutters  and 
flaunts,  defiant  to  the  end. 


What  is  more  divinely  fragrant, 
more   elusively  fresh   and  cool  and 
229 


Nature-Notes 

morning-suggestive  in  aroma  than  is 
this  September  primrose,  golden  and 
moist  as  a  streak  of  dawn,  found 
blooming  by  this  wooded  brook 
among  the  jewel  weeds  and  black 
berry  bushes?  It  reminds  me,  in  its 
simple  and  solitary  loveliness,  with 
its  clean,  cool  aroma,  of  a  girl,  a 
country  maiden,  primrose-fair,  and 
fresh  and  sweet-smelling  as  her  own 
old-fashioned  garden  dewy  with  the 
dewiness  of  the  moon. 


Out  of  the  arrow-heads,  that 
thrust  their  broad  leaf-blades,  like  so 
many  halberts  or  glaives,  from  the 
pooled  creek-water,  the  blue  heron 
rises  with  a  sharp,  short,  impatient 
cry,  slowly  and  softly  winging  away, 
like  some  weird  bird  of  our  Fairy- 
story  Days,  some  fairy  guardian  of 
a  magic  and  haunted  water,  an  en 
chanted  damsel  who  takes  the  form 
230 


Nature-Notes 

of  a  water-lily  at  our  approach,  while 
the  warden  elf  transforms  himself 
into  a  bird. 


Sept.  1 6th.  Happening  to  glance 
up  as  I  was  musing  along  I  saw  what 
seemed  to  me  scattered  clusters  of 
large  ripe  blackberries,  glistening  jet- 
like  ;  but  in  place  of  the  briers  of  the 
blackberry,  I  saw  that  these  berries 
were  held  up  on  long,  branched, 
smooth  stems  that  shot  up  from 
broad-leafed  lily  blades.  They  were 
the  podless  seeds  of  the  blackberry 
lily,  that  resemble  so  closely,  in  ap 
pearance  only,  the  real  blackberry 
that  one  unacquainted  with  the  flower 
would,  until  plucked  and  tasted,  mis 
take  it  for  the  blackberry. 


Singly    or    thick-clustered,    little, 
pointed  rounds  of  ruby  and  polished 
agate,  the  berries  of  the  dogwood  red- 
231 


Nature-Notes 

den,  pointing  with  changeless  flame, 
as  flashes  of  fire  might  a  great  smoke, 
the  dense  green  of  its  leaves.  The 
roadway  is  scattered  with  their  crim 
son.  Xearby  the  wahoo's  capsules, 
a  rosy  cinnabar,  have  opened,  disclos 
ing  their  vermilion  seeds  —  seemingly 
the  imprisoned  carmine  of  the  autumn 
sunset 

Not  quite  so  conspicuous  as  the 
wahoo,  the  spice  bush  too  bleeds  with 
berries;  their  glistening  red  pun- 
gently  aromatic  to  taste  and  smell; 
it  does  not  permit  the  dogwood  to 
outdo  it  in  brightness  of  color. 


Here  and  there  in  the  moist,  dark 
places  of  the  beech  wood  the  Indian- 
pipe,  or  Ghost-flower,  lifts  its  frail, 
retiring  stalk  a  few  inches  above  the 
rotted  damp  leaves  of  last  year.  The 
stalks,  at  first  ghostly  in  their  white 
ness,  after  a  day  or  so  turn  a  delicate 
232 


Nature-Notes 

pink  flaked  and  scaled  with  diapha 
nous  white  which  is  their  leaves. 
Each  blossom,  which  resembles  a 
tightly  wrapped  rosebud,  terminates 
the  bended  stalk,  pale  as  a  nun's  face 
bowed  in  meditation  or  prayer  above 
her  rosary. 


Under  the  old  beech  the  clownish 
clumps  of  the  beechdrops  bristle, 
straggly  and  stiff,  resembling  wild 
wisps  of  coarse  cow-colored  hair,  — 
tufts  torn  out  and  scattered  to  right 
and  left  by  the  wood-witches  at  their 
satanic  orgies,  celebrating  their  sab 
batic  rites  when  the  storm  was  abroad 
and  the  horned  owl  hooted  in  the 
hollow  tree  and  the  fox  barked  near 
the  blackened  rock  where  they  found 
the  murdered  man. 


An  iridescent,  an  indefinable  blue, 
glitteringly   metallic,    was    the   little 
233 


Nature-Notes 

lizard  I  saw  to-day,  slender  and 
swift,  all  alert  on  the  limb  of  a  fallen 
tree  in  the  deep  woods.  It  reminded 
me  of  a  jewel,  a  living  gem,  won 
derful  in  workmanship,  such  as,  I 
imagine,  the  wood-spirits  wear  in 
their  green  hair  or  at  their  throats 
of  mushroom  whiteness. 


Goldenrod,  lobelia,  ageratum,  prim 
rose  and  cardinal-flower  lead  down 
the  bright  battalions  of  their  blos 
soms  to  the  brookside,  swarming  its 
banks,  rank  upon  rank,  their  glorious 
array  mirrored  and  reflected  in  the 
smooth-flowing  waters.  Their  plumed 
and  bannered  hosts  startle  and  aston 
ish  the  fields  with  a  splendid,  a 
mighty  invasion  —  the  fields  that 
have  not  felt  a  plough  for  years. 
Now  a  chattering  jay  flashes  above 
them,  garrulous,  jubilant,  intoxicated 
with  the  sea  of  colors,  itself  a  winged 
234 


Nature-Notes 

blossom,  a  great  lobelia,  blue,  freaked 
with  white,  endowed  with  a  voice, 
and  hurrahing  its  happiness  to  the 
sky  and  the  trees. 


The  life-everlasting,  grayish  white, 
higher  than  the  cardinal  flower  and 
lower  than  the  boneset  bloom,  gives 
colorless  tone  to  the  wild  fields  thick 
with  the  rust-colored  corymbs  of  the 
ironweeds,  whose  purple  is  almost 
departed  now,  so  populous  and  im 
perial  a  few  weeks  ago,  dominating 
the  fallows.  Its  fragrance,  quiet  and 
unintrusive,  scents  with  sadness  and 
rest  the  idle  fields,  filling  the  heart 
with  oldtime  memories  of  happy 
places,  country  attics,  ramshackle 
rafters,  old,  homely  lofts  of  boyhood 
days  on  the  farm,  where  the  wasp 
and  mud-dauber  buzzed  and  built, 
and  where  were  stored  for  winter  use 
all  the  sunlight  and  warmth  of  the 
235 


Nature-Notes 

summer  fields  in  simples  such  as  this, 
fragrant  life-everlasting,  and  herbs 
and  dried  fruits  of  the  garden  ;  apple- 
scented  places  full  of  rustic  peace  and 
plenty  where  our  boyhood  passed  like 
a  dream. 


The  huge  yellow  spider,  the  writ 
ing-spider,  in  hot,  weedy  places,  stri 
dent  with  the  stinging  music  of  the 
weed-bugs;  and  the  corpulent  red 
spider,  with  its  big  abdomen  ;  and  the 
angular  black  spider,  ungainly  and 
humped  of  back,  enameled,  as  it  were, 
with  white,  a  porcelain-backed  hor 
ror,  spin  their  webs  across  the 
open  paths  of  the  woods,  patiently 
awaiting  the  arrival  of  prey,  some 
wood-fly,  gnat,  moth,  wasp,  or  grass 
hopper,  hurrying  or  lumbering  blindly 
along  that  entangles  itself  in  their 
nets. 

How  they  remind  me  of  that 
horrible  humanity  that  lairs  in  our 
236 


Nature-Notes 

large  cities  and  spreads  its  snares 
for  the  destruction  of  the  innocent 
the  unsuspecting!  whose  mined  or 
dead  remnants  are  found  lying  in  the 
street  or  in  some  alley-way,  unrecojf- 
mzable,  by  some  early  riser,  as  this 
insect,  this  burnished  beetle  is  found 
by  me  stretched,  a  mere  sheD,  in  a 
corner  of  this  web. 


It  is  remarkable  to  see  how  the  ox- 
eyed  daisy  still  holds  on-  Here  it  is 
past  the  middle  of  September  and  I 
find  it  blooming,  fresh  of  white  and 
young  of  gold  among  the  mist-flower, 
the  life-everlasting,  the  false  dragon- 
head,  and  the  goldenrod  —  a  starry 
stain  in  the  richly  embroidered  apron 
of  Fall,  a  pearly  spot  that  will  not 
out. 


Nature-Notes 

Until  we  meet  again 
Heaven  keep  thee  gay! 

'Neath  skies  of  sun  or  rain, 
Or  gold  or  gray, 
Heaven  keep  thee  gay. 

Even  as  the  sun-dial  does, 

So  let  thy  days 
Record  no  hour  that  was 

Not  full  of  rays, 
Even  as  the  sun-dial  does. 


Where  bloomed  the  rose  but  yesterday, 
Lamp  upon  lamp  the  hips  burn  red ; 

And  one  by  one  leaves  float  away, 

Red  leaves  dropped  in  the  wood-stream's 
bed. 

And  now  the  spectres  of  the  flowers 
Stream  white  across  the  stubble  plains; 

Ghosts,    shaken    from    their    wind-swept 

bowers, 
Of  weeds  that  tangle  all  the  lanes. 

The  partridge  pipes;   the  blue- jays  call; 

And  caws  the  crow,  that  ribald  bird : 
The  woods  turn  gold ;  the  acorns  fall ; 

And  all  day  long  the  hunt  is  heard. 

238 


Nature-Notes 

A  wood  of  thorns  —  thorn  trees, 
thorn  trees  everywhere;  low,  dense, 
dwarfed,  tall,  scrawny  trees,  thrust 
ing  at  you  from  every  direction  their 
murderous  looking,  formidable  limbs 
and  trunks  armed  with  great  pronged 
spikes  and  spurs.  The  wood  to  me 
seems  as  wild,  forbidding  and  threat 
ening  as  I  imagine  was  the  impene 
trable  and  bristling  brake  of  thorns 
that  grew  up  around  the  Castle  of  the 
Sleeping  Beauty.  Here  and  there  the 
sunlight  strikes  upon  a  thorn  that  is 
a  part  of  this  year's  growth,  and 
it  stands  out  conspicuous  crimson, 
transparent  ruby;  red  as  if  dyed 
through  and  through  with  the  blood 
of  some  gentle,  slain  thing  —  some 
hope,  perhaps,  that  threading  the 
forest,  —  endeavoring  to  penetrate  its 
fastnesses  to  some  far  dream  of  love, 
lost,  shut  in,  despairing  of  deliver 
ance,  within  its  savage  and  silent 
deeps,  imprisoned  and  enchanted  in 
239 


Nature-Notes 

some  horror  of  rock  and  weed  and 
vine,  —  in  the  darkness  and  the 
storm  had  pierced  its  wild  heart  and 
breathed  out  its  young  life  here. 


The  climbing  cricket  clings, 
Moving  its  vibrant  wings, 

To    some    green    brier    amid    the    fields 
turned  sere: 

And  to  me,  dreaming  here, 
Its  plaintive  music  seems 
An  utterance  of  dreams 

And  it  itself  lute  of  the  dying  Year. 


My  soul  is  sick  of  many  things, 

But  mainly  of  the  word, 
The  word  of  hope  day  never  brings ; 

That  like  some  beautiful  bird 
Above  me  and  beyond  me  wings, 

Yet  nevermore  is  heard. 


Ah,  not  in  vain 
I  see  again 

The  roses  ruined  of  the  rain: 
240 


Nature-Notes 

And  in  the  mist 

The  amethyst 

Of  morning-glories  wet  and  whist : 

The  moonflower  bent 

And  torn  and  rent 

That  yestereve  was  redolent. 

Back  to  my  heart 
They  bring  the  smart 
Of  thoughts  from  which  I  can  not 
part. 

Analogies 

Of  memories 

That  fall  like  rain  on  autumn  leas. 

Sad  memories  all, 
Like  rain,  that  fall 
On  joy,  a  rose  wrecked  by  the  wall. 


I  came  across  a  great,  pulpy,  green 
mushroom,  the  Green  Russula,  to 
day  among  many  fall  fungi,  —  cupped 
and  parasoled,  red,  slate-gray,  white, 
and  brown,  —  under  the  low  boughs 
16  241 


Nature-Notes 

of  a  beech  in  the  rain-sodden  woods. 
To  its  fluted  underside,  near  its  stem, 
two  small  gray  snails  were  clinging, 
eating  away  for  dear  life:  and  to  its 
top  and  about  its  rim,  ragged  with 
the  gnawing  of  numerous  insects, 
wood-ants  and  beetles,  a  slow  slug 
lay  gorging  deliberately,  like  some 
fat,  fairy  Caliban. 

The  fungus  seemed  to  me  a  great, 
green  vegetable  confection  upon 
which  these  small  fry  of  the  forest 
were  feasting.  —  Or  was  it  a  great 
table  that  the  gnomes  had  wrought 
of  mingled  mist,  rain,  musk,  and 
milk  o'  the  moon,  —  a  materialized 
fancy  of  Faery,  —  and  laboriously 
lifted  up  from  the  earth  to  the  monot 
onous  music  of  the  grig?  A  table 
which  the  elfins  had  spread  with  a 
forest  feast,  whose  exhalations  had 
saturated  it  through  and  through  with 
fine  flavors  and  savors,  spilth  of  their 
imp-carousal,  that  left  it  a  stained 
242 


Nature-Notes 

and  luscious  morsel  for  the  gnat  and 
the  ant,  the  snail,  the  slug  and  the 
beetle  to  batten  upon. 


How  Nature  protects  her  insects, 
her  bugs,  her  beetles,  and  her  butter 
flies  !  painting  their  wings  and  bodies 
with  hues  hardly  distinguishable  from 
the  earth,  the  rock,  or  the  bark  which 
they  frequent  or  inhabit.  This  butter 
fly,  for  instance,  softly  opening  and 
closing  its  wings  on  the  gray  trunk 
of  this  old  oak.  When  closed,  the 
protective  coloring  of  the  underside 
of  its  wings  so  confuses  the  eye  that 
the  insect  is  not  detachable  in  color 
from  the  bark  to  which  it  clings, 
being  dyed  a  soft,  mottled  gray,  like 
that  of  the  lichen  that  overspreads 
and  spots  the  trunk  of  the  tree.  When 
open  —  what  a  revelation  of  dyes! 
it  is  as  if  the  creature  had  doffed  its 
Lenten  habit  for  one  of  festival ;  had 
243 


Nature-Notes 

unfolded  its  sober  cloak,  astonishing 
us  with  the  richness  of  its  lining,  its 
under  apparel,  velvet  and  vair,  reve 
lations  of  ruddy  seal  and  dim  ermine : 
its  body  and  the  interior  part  of  its 
wings  furfine  and  downy,  the  color 
of  rich  old  port  wine,  edged  irregu 
larly  with  a  dim,  soft  gray,  a  lichen 
white,  sprinkled  with  minute  specks 
of  dull  gold  and  marked  at  regular 
intervals  with  orbs  or  ovals  of  a 
shadowy  blue. 

I  have  stood  for  half  an  hour  ab 
sorbed  upon  its  beauty;  watching  it 
slowly  and  gracefully  opening  and 
closing  its  wings.  —  What  a  wonder 
ful  piece  of  workmanship!  And  to 
think  that  this  was  once  a  worm! 
obscene  and  hideous,  crawling  and 
gorging  itself  upon  every  green  thing 
in  its  hairy  way!  Now  how  it  puts 
to  scorn  the  beauty  wrought  of  the 
labored  Art  of  man !  What  a  jewel, 
winged  and  living,  for  the  Spirit  of 
244 


Nature-Notes 

Autumn  to  wear  in  her  Romany  hair 
or  at  her  gipsy  throat  as  she  takes 
her  way  through  the  crimsoning 
woodlands  to  tryst  with  the  quiet 
Spirit  of  Indian  Summer! 


Wandering  along  a  country  road 
to-day,  the  middle  of  October,  an  un 
usual  thing  to  see  at  this  time  of  the 
year,  was  an  apple  tree  in  bloom. 
Dotted  here  and  there  over  its  almost 
entirely  leafless  branches,  gnarled  and 
dead  in  many  places,  freshened  the 
pink  and  white  tufts  of  the  blossoms, 
—  like  love  knots  in  the  sober  raiment 
of  an  old  woman  who  was  once  a  belle. 

The  old  tree  must  have  been 
dreaming  of  the  spring  and  uncon 
sciously  put  forth  blossoms,  expres 
sions  of  its  heart's  deep  yearnings, 
responsive  and  anticipatory,  at  the 
time  when  everything  had  ceased,  or 
was  ceasing,  to  bloom,  and  the  Spirit 
245 


Nature-Notes 

of  Death  instead  of  the  Spirit  of  Birth 
was  abroad  in  the  world. 


A  thin  fall  rain, 
Whose  spite  again 
Whips  wild  the  drizzled  window- 
pane: 

Through  which  I  see 

The  blinded  bee 

Beat  down  and  ended  utterly : 

The  marigold 

And  zinnia  old 

Bent,  wet,  and  wretched  in  the  cold : 

And  all  the  bowers 
Forlorn  of  flowers 
As  are  the  hopes  which  once  were 
ours. 


Ephemeral  gold, 

Deciduous  emerald, 

And  crumbling  ruby  all  the  forests  old 
Fling  to  the  shining  wind,  deep-rolled 
Like  some  loud  music  through  them : 
Majestic  music,  sad  and  manifold, 
246 


Nature-Notes 

The  music  of  that  ancient  skald, 

October  called, 
Who  sits  wild  chanting  to  them. 


There  is  a  sense  of  something  un 
utterably  sad,  irretrievably  lost,  in 
the  wind  that  sighs,  and  never  ceases 
to  sigh,  in  the  fast-fading  forests.  I 
seem  walking  with  some  vast  and 
ancient  woe,  some  gigantic  melan 
choly,  invisible  and  swiftly  moving, 
whose  dark  and  mighty  cloak  sweeps 
stormily  the  boughs,  shredding  the 
leaves  and  hurling  the  acorns  down. 


Oct.  23d.  Two  ragged,  belated 
ox-eyed  daisies,  and  a  last  pink  plume 
of  the  dragonhead  hold  solitary 
flower-sway  over  the  sere  autumn 
fields,  full  of  the  ghosts  of  dead 
flowers;  glinting  and  glimmering 
gray  with  the  silken  seeds  and 
feathery  wisps  of  the  salmon-colored 
247 


Nature-Notes 

broom-sedge  and  dead  goldenrod;  the 
wan,  frost-nipped  stars  and  tufted 
heads  of  the  wild  aster,  and  the 
woolly  white  tops  of  the  life-ever 
lasting. 

Berries  there  are  in  abundance, 
purple  and  pink  and  crimson;  orange 
and  ruby  and  vermilion;  cat-brier 
berries,  a  frosted  damson  blue;  dog 
wood  and  spicewood  berries,  like 
polished  carnelian ;  sumach  and  Her 
cules-club  and  hellebore  berries, 
brick-dust  color  and  mulberry  black; 
buck-bush  berries,  cranberry  or  apple 
red;  bittersweet  berries,  gold  and 
scarlet  glowing;  running  euonymus, 
or  strawberry-bush,  rose  and  crim 
son  ;  and  wahoo  berries,  mingling  the 
cameo  and  crimson  hues  of  stormy 
autumn  sunsets  and  dawns. 


All  around  me  in  the  wind-tossed 
woods  patter  the  nuts;  heard  sud- 
248 


Nature-Notes 

denly  each  nut  is  as  startling  as  the 
fall  of  an  unexpected  footstep.  Chest 
nut,  acorn,  hickory  and  beech  nut, 
how  they  rain !  shaken  each  one  from 
its  infirm  hold  by  every  breeze  that 
sweeps  the  wood.  Mast,  with  which 
the  agile  squirrel  stores  his  winter 
granary,  snug  in  the  top  of  some  old 
and  hollow  tree. 

The  birds  seem  to  be  all  gone  away ; 
at  least,  if  present,  they  are  silent; 
all  except  two  —  the  crow  and  the 
jay,  who  are  never  weary  of  cawing 
and  screaming,  making  the  woods 
noisy  with  their  cries,  the  one  trying 
to  outdo  the  other  in  ridicule  and 
vituperation. 

In  the  underbrush,  flitting  secretly, 
silently,  searching  apparently  for  its 
mate,  dead  with  the  summer,  I  beheld 
a  grosbeak,  warm-looking  in  its  plaid 
suit  of  brown  and  black  and  red  and 
gray.  Soundlessly  it  vanished,  sud 
denly  disappearing,  visible  a  moment, 
249 


Nature-Notes 

then  gone  in  the  hush  of  the  autumn 
woods  —  was  it  a  bird  or  only  the 
ghost  of  one? 


The  scarlet  and  the  gold  and  bronze, 

The  lemon,  rose  and  gray, 
The  splendors  that  October  dons, 

Seen  from  this  hilltop  far  away, 
Like  some  wild  bugle  blast,  far  blown,  — 
The  visible  sound  of  something  wild,  un 
known,  — 

Crimsonly  calling,  shake  my  blood  that 
thrills; 

Commanding  me  to  follow 

Beyond  the  farthest  hills; 

Exultantly  to  follow, 

Through  flaming  holt  and  hollow, 

Whereso  their  music  wills ; 

The  trumpet-pealing  fires 

Of  trees  and  vines  and  briers, 

Whose  leaves  like  notes  are  falling, 

The  clarion  color  calling 

My  heart  beyond  the  hills. 


What  is  more  startling  than  the 
unexpected  explosion  of  a  covey  of 
250 


Nature-Notes 

quail  when  one  is  walking  and  mus 
ing  in  the  winter  fields?  thinking  of 
nothing,  or,  if  of  anything,  then  of 
the  difference  between  the  appear 
ance  of  the  landscape  now,  bleak  and 
bare  and  forbidding,  and  that  which 
it  was  when  these  same  birds  were 
calling  "  bob-white  "  to  one  another 
in  the  same  fields,  full  of  flowers  and 
sunlight  and  redolent  with  summer. 


The  thin  window-pane-like  ice  lac 
ing  and  scaling  the  frozen  wood-road 
ruts  and  the  leaf-cramped  streams 
and  pools  of  the  December  woods, 
glimmeringly  or  glitteringly  seen, 
glinting  in  the  chilly  winter  sunlight, 
fills  me  with  the  fairy  fancies  of  my 
boyhood,  indefinable,  almost  for 
gotten  memories  of  ice-maidens, 
elves  and  spirits,  who,  my  childhood 
fancied,  are  busy  all  the  winter  night, 
by  the  light  of  the  moon  and  the  stars, 
251 


Nature-Notes 

with  the  frost-furred  window-panes 
of  the  farmhouse  and  the  shallow 
forest  streams  and  ponds;  their 
noiseless  fingers  of  icy  crystal  swiftly 
transforming  them  into  sheets  of 
ferned  and  flowered  diamond  and 
pearl. 


All  day  long  the  frost  hoars  the 
hillside  here  where  the  sun  never 
strikes.  Here,  too,  the  shallow  and 
sluggish  water  marbles  bluely  under 
the  thin,  frail  ice  of  the  frozen  stream 
let  —  changing  constantly  and  slowly 
its  visible  form:  liquid  grotesques, 
flowing  figurings  of  foam  forming 
and  fading  away  —  phantoms  of  blue 
rain;  shadowy  shapes  that  inhabit 
the  stream;  constantly  striving  to 
free  themselves,  seemingly,  from 
their  dungeon  of  crystal;  moving, 
Protean  and  fantastic  in  appearance, 
hither  and  thither,  stealthily  silent  as 
if  fearful  of  awaking  him  who  never 
252 


Nature-Notes 

sleeps,   their  hoary  gaoler,   the   im 
prisoning,  the  unpersuadable  Frost. 


Ochre-colored  broom-sedge 
Yellowing  desolate  ways, 
Fields,  the  black  thorns  hedge, 
Bleached  with  sodden  strays, 
Strays  of  leaves  and  flowers  of  dead,  for 
gotten  days. 


In  the  forest  by  the  rain-wild  creeks, 
Where  the  wet  wind  fumbles  in  the 
boughs, 

Rake  the  leaves  away  and,  lo !  the  beaks 
Of  a  myriad  germs,  beneath,  that  house : 

Fingertips  of  gold  and  green  and  gray, 
Tongues    and    fingertips    of    countless 

flowers, 
Pointing  us  and  telling  us  the  way, 

Path  up  which  the  Springtime  leads  her 
Hours : 

At  whose  step  awake  the  thousand  pipes 
Of  the  hylas,  ere  our  eye  perceives 

In  her  cheeks  the  rose  that  morning  stripes, 
In  her  hair  the  gold  of  all  the  eves. 
253 


CATKINS 


Misty  are  the  far-off  hills 
And  misty  are  the  near ; 
Purple  hazes  dimly  lie 
Veiling  hill  and  field  and  sky, 
Marshes  where  the  hylas  cry, 
Like  a  myriad  bills 
Piping,  "  Spring  is  here !  " 


II 

A  redbird  flits, 

Then  sings  and  sits 

And  calls  to  his  mate, 

"She  is  late!  she  is  late! 

How  long,  how  long  must  the  woodland 

wait 

For  its  emerald  plumes 
And  its  jewelled  blooms  ?  — 
She  is  late!  she  is  late!" 
254 


Catkins 


in 

Along  the  stream, 
A  cloudy  gleam, 

The  pussy-willows,  tufted  white, 
Make  of  each  tree  a  mighty  light ; 
Pearl  and  silver  and  glimmering  gray 
They  tassel  the  boughs  of  the  willow  way ; 
And  as  they  swing  they  seem  to  say, 
With  mouths  of  bloom 
And  warm  perfume :  — 

IV 

"  Awake !  awake ! 
For  young  Spring's  sake, 
O  little  brown  bees  in  hive  and  brake ! 
Awake!  awake! 
For  sweet  Spring's  sake, 
O  butterflies  whose  wild  wings  ache 
With  colors  rare 
As  flowers  wear ! 
And  hither,  hither, 
Before  we  wither ! 
Oh,  come  to  us, 
All  amorous 

With  honey  for  your  mouths  to  buss. 
255 


Catkins 


"Hearken!  hearken!  — 

Last  night  we  heard 

A  wondrous  word : 

When  dusk  did  darken 

The  rain  and  the  wind  sat  in  these  boughs, 

As  in  a  great  and  shadowy  house. 

At  first  we  deemed 

We  only  dreamed, 

And  then  it  seemed 

We  heard  them  whisper  of  things  to  be, 

The  wind  and  the  rain  in  the  willow  tree, 

A  sweet,  delicious  conspiracy, 

To  take  the  world  with  witchery : 

They  talked  of  the  fairy  brotherhoods 

Of  blooms  and  blossoms  and  leaves  and 

buds, 

That  ambushed  under  the  winter  mold 
And  under  the  bark  of  the  forest  old : 
And  they  took  our  breath 
With  the  shibboleth, 
The  secret  word  that  casts  off  death, 
That  word  of  life  no  man  may  guess ; 
That  wondrous  word 
Which  we  then  heard, 

256 


Catkins 

That  bids  life  rise 

Beneath  the  skies; 

Rise  up  and  fill 

Far  wood  and  hill 

With  myriad  hosts  of  loveliness, 

Invading  beauty  that  love  shall  bless. 

VI 

"  Then  in  our  ears, 

Our  woolly  ears, 

Our  little  ears  of  willow  bloom, 

Like  wild  perfume 

We  seemed  to  hear  dim  woodland  cheers 

Of  hosts  of  flowers 

That  soon  would  run 

Through  fields  and  bowers, 

And  to  the  sun 

Lift  high  their  banners  of  blue  and  gold, 

And  storm  the  ways  of  the  woodland  old. 

VII 

"  Awake !   awake ! 
For  young  Spring's  sake, 
O  hylas  sleeping  in  marsh  and  lake! 
Tune  up  your  pipes  and  play,  play,  play ! 
Tune,  tune  your  reeds  in  ooze  and  clay, 
17  257 


Announcement 

And  pipe  and  sing 

Till  everything 

Knows,  gladly  knows, 

Sowing  the  rose, 

The  lily  and  rose, 

With  her  breast  blown  bare 

And  the  wind  in  her  hair, 

And  the  birds  around  her  everywhere, 

The  Spring,  the  Spring, 

The  young  witch  Spring, 

With  lilt  and  laughter,  and  rain  and  ray, 

Comes  swiftly,  wildly  up  this  way." 


ANNOUNCEMENT 

The  night  is  loud  with  reeds  of  rain 

Rejoicing  at  my  window-pane, 

And  murmuring,  "  Spring  comes  again !  " 

I  hear  the  wind  take  up  their  song 
And  on  the  sky's  vibrating  gong 
Beat  out  and  roar  it  all  night  long. 

Then  waters,  where  they  pour  their  might 
In  foam,  halloo  it  down  the  night, 
From  vale  to  vale  and  height  to  height. 

358 


Announcement 

And  I  thank  God  that  down  the  deep 
She  comes,  her  ancient  tryst  to  keep 
With  Earth  again  who  wakes  from  sleep 


From  death  and  sleep,  that  held  her  fast 
So  long,  pale  cerements  round  her  cast, 
Her  penetential  raiment  vast. 


Now,  Lazarus-like,  within  her  grave 
She  stirs,  who  hears  the  words  that  save, 
The  Christ-like  words  of  wind  and  wave. 


And,  hearing,  bids  her  soul  prepare 
The  germs  of  blossoms  in  her  there 
To  make  her  body  sweet  and  fair; 


To  meet  in  manifest  audience 
The  eyes  of  Spring,  and  reverence, 
With  beauty,  God  in  soul  and  sense. 


259 


"The  Wildwood  Way" 

"WHEN    SPRING   COMES    DOWN 
THE  WILDWOOD  WAY" 

When  Spring  comes  down  the  wildwood 

way, 

A  crocus  in  her  ear, 
Sweet  in  her  train,  returned  with  May, 

The  Love  of  Yester-year 
Will  follow,  carolling  his  lay, 

His  lyric  lay, 
Whose  music  she  will  hear. 

The  crowfoot  in  the  grass  shall  glow, 
And  lamp  his  way  with  gold ; 

The  snowdrop  toss  its  bells  of  snow, 
The  bluebell's  blue  unfold, 

To  glad  the  path  that  Love  shall  go, 

High-hearted  go, 
As  often  in  the  days  of  old. 

The  way  he  went  when  hope  was  keen, 

Was  high  in  girl  and  boy : 
Before  the  sad  world  came  between 
Their  young  hearts  and  their  joy : 
Their  hearts,  that  Love  has  still  kept  clean, 

Kept  whole  and  clean, 
Through'  all  the  years'  annoy. 
260 


Hilda  of  the  Hillside 

How  long  it  seems  until  the  spring! 

Until  his  heart  shall  speak 
To  hers  again,  and  make  it  sing, 

And  with  its  great  joy  weak! 
.When  on  her  hand  he  '11  place  the  ring, 
The  wedding-ring, 

And  kiss  her  mouth  and  cheek! 


HILDA    OF    THE    HILLSIDE 


Who  is  she,  like  the  spring,  who  comes 

down 
From  the  hills  to  the  smoke-huddled  town  ? 

With  her  peach-petal  face 

And  her  wildflower  grace, 
Bringing  sunshine  and  gladness  to  each 
sorry  place  ?  — 

Her  cheeks  are  twin  buds  o'  the  brier, 

Mixed  fervors  of  snow  and  of  fire; 

Her  lips  are  the  red 

Of  a  rose  that  is  wed 
To  dew  and  aroma  when  dawn  is  o'erhead : 

Her  eyes  are  twin  bits  o'  the  skies, 

Blue  glimpses  of  Paradise ; 
261 


Hilda  of  the  Hillside 

The  strands  of  her  hair 
Are  sunlight  and  air  — 
Herself  is  the  argument  that  she  is  fair, 
This  girl  with  the  dawn  in  her  eyes. 


II 

If  Herrick  had  looked  on  her  face 
His  lyrics  had  learned  a  new  grace : 
Her  face  is  a  book 
Where  each  laugh  and  each  look, 
Each  smile  is  a  lyric,  more  sweet  than  a 

brook: 
Her  words  —  they  are  birds  that  are 

heard 
Singing    low    where    the    roses    are 

stirred,  — 

The  buds  of  her  lips,  — 
Whence  each  of  them  slips 
With  music  as  soft  as  the  fragrance  that 

drips 

From  a  dew-dreaming  bloom ;  — 
With  their  sound  and  perfume 
Making  all  my  glad  heart  a  love-haunted 
room. 


262 


Dawn  in  the  Alleghanies 


in 

But  she  —  she  knows  nothing  of  love ! 
She  —  she  with  the  soul  of  a  dove, 

Who  dwells  on  the  hills, 

Knowing  naught  of  the  ills 
Of  the  vales,  of  the  hearts  that  with  pas 
sion  she  fills: 

For  whom  all  my  soul 

Is  a  harp  from  which  roll 
The  songs  that  she  hears  not,  the  voice  of 
my  love, 

This  girl  who  goes  singing  above. 


DAWN   IN  THE  ALLEGHANIES 

The  waters  leap, 
The  waters  roar ; 
And  on  the  shore 
One  sycamore 
Stands,  towering  hoar. 
The  mountains  heap 
Gaunt  pines  and  crags 
That  hoar-frost  shags; 
And,  pierced  with  snags, 
Like  horns  of  stags, 

263 


Dawn  in  the  Alleghanies 

The  water  lags, 
The  water  drags, 
Where  trees,  like  hags, 
Lean  from  the  steep. 


The  mist  begins 
To  swirl ;  then  spins 
'Mid  outs  and  ins 
Of  heights ;  and  thins 
Where  the  torrent  dins; 
And  lost  in  sweep 
Of  its  whiteness  deep 
The  valleys  sleep. 

Now  morning  strikes 
On  wild  rampikes 
Of  forest  spikes, 
And,  down  dim  dykes 
Of  dawn,  like  sheep, 
Scatters  the  mists, 
And  amethysts 
With  light,  that  twists, 
And  rifts  that  run 
Azure  with  sun,  — 
Wild-whirled  and  spun,  - 
The  foggy  dun 
O'  the  heavens  deep. 
264 


Music 

Look!  how  they  keep 

Majestic  ward, 

Gigantic  guard ! 

And  gaze,  rock-browed, 

Through  mist  and  cloud ! 

Eternal,  vast, 

As  ages  past ! 

And  seem  to  speak, 

With  peak  on  peak, 

Of  God !  and  see 

Eternity ! 


MUSIC 

Oh,  let  me  die  in  Music's  arms, 
Clasped  by  some  milder  melody 

Than  that  which  thrills  with  soft  alarms 
The  souls  of  Love  and  Ecstasy! 
Until  the  tired  heart  in  me 
Is  stilled  of  storms. 

So  let  me  die,  a  slave  of  slaves, 

Within  her  train  of  lyric  gold : 
Borne  onward  through  her  vasty  caves 
Of  harmony,  that  echo  old 
With  all  our  sad  hearts  hope  and  hold, 
And  all  life  craves. 
265 


Music 

Come  with  the  pleasures  dear  to  men 
In  one  long  Triumph !  —  what  are  they 

Beside  the  one  that  sweeps  us  when 
Her  harp  she  smites?  and  far  away 
She  bears  us  from  the  cares  of  day 
Unto  her  glen? 

Her  hollow  glen,  where,  like  a  star, 

That,  in  deep  heaven,  thrills  and  throbs, 
She  sits,  her  wild  harp  heard  afar, 

Strung  with  the  gold  of  grief  that  sobs, 
And  love  that  sighs,  and,  whispering, 

robs 
All  life  of  jar. 

Beneath  her  all-compelling  eye 

Our  souls  lie  naked :  nothing  seems 
That  is :  but  that  which  is  not,  by 
Her  magic,  lives :  and  all  our  dreams 
Are    real,    and,    clothed    in    heavenly 

gleams, 
Smile,  leaning  nigh. 

The  soul  of  love  that  can  not  die 

Breathes  on  our  eyelids  starry  fire ; 
And  sorrow,  with  sweet  lips  that  sigh, 
Kisses  our  lips ;  and  faith,  the  choir 
Of  all  our  hopes,  its  heart  a  lyre, 
Goes  singing  by. 
266 


Autumn  Etchings 

AUTUMN    ETCHINGS 


I 

MORNING 

Her  rain-kissed  face  is  fresh  as  rain, 

Is  cool  and  fresh  as  a  rain-wet  leaf; 
She  glimmers  at  my  window-pane, 

And  all  my  grief 

Becomes  a  feeble  rushlight,  seen  no  more 
When  the  gold  of  her  gown  sweeps  in  my 
door. 


II 

FORENOON 

Great  blurs  of  woodland  waved  with  wind ; 

Gray  paths,  down  which  October  came, 
That  now  November's  blasts  have  thinned 

And  flecked  with  fiercer  flame, 
Are  her  delight.    She  loves  to  lie 
Regarding  with  a  gray-blue  eye 
The  far-off  hills  that  hold  the  sky: 
And  I  —  I  lie  and  gaze  with  her 


Autumn  Etchings 

Beyond  the  autumn  woods  and  ways 
Into  the  hope  of  coming  days, 
The  spring  that  nothing  shall  deter, 
That  puts  my  soul  in  unison 
.With  what 's  to  do  and  what  is  done. 


Ill 

NOON 

Wild  grapes  that  purple  through 

Leaves  that  are  golden ; 
Brush-fires  that  pillar  blue 

Woods,  that,  en f olden 
Deep  in  the  haze  of  dreams, 

In  resignation 
Give  themselves  up,  it  seems, 

To  divination : 
Woods,  that,  ablaze  with  oak, 

That  the  crow  flew  in, 
Gaze  through  the  brushwood  smoke 

On  their  own  ruin, 

And  on  the  countenance  of  Death  who 
stalks 

Amid  their  miles, 
While  to  himself  he  talks 

And  smiles : 

268 


Autumn  Etchings 

Where,  in  their  midst,  Noon  sits  and  holds 
Communion  with  their  grays  and  golds, 
Transforming  with  her  rays  their  golds 

and  grays, 
And  in  my  heart  the  memories  of  dead 

days. 


;  IV 

AFTERNOON 

Wrought-iron  hues  of  blood  and  bronze, 

Like  some  wild  dawn's, 
Make  fierce  each  leafy  spire 

Of  blackberry  brier, 
Where,  through  their  thorny  fire, 
She  goes,  the  Afternoon,  from  wood  to 

wood, 

From  crest  to  oak-crowned  crest 
Of  the  high  hill-lands,  where  the  Morning 

stood 

With  rosy-ribboned  breast. 
Along  the  hills  she  takes  the  tangled  path 
Unto  the  quiet  close  of  day, 
Musing  on  what  a  lovely  death  she  hath  — 
The  unearthly  golden  beryl  far  away 
Banding  the  gradual  west, 
269 


Autumn  Etchings 

Seen  through  cathedral  columns  of  the 

pines 
And  minster  naves  of  woodlands  arched 

with  vines; 
The  golden  couch,  spread  of  the  setting 

sun, 
For  her  to  lie,  and  me  to  gaze,  upon. 

V 

EVENING 

The  winds  awake, 

And,  whispering,  shake 
The  aster-flower  whose  doom  is  sealed ; 

The  sumach-bloom 

Bows  down  its  plume; 
And,  —  blossom-Bayard  of  the  field,  — 

The  chicory  stout 

To  the  winds'  wild  rout 
Lifts  up  its  ragged  shield. 
Low  in  the  west  the  Evening  shows 

A  ridge  of  rose; 
And,  stepping  Earthward  from  the  hills, 

Where'er  she  goes 

The  cricket  wakes,  and  all  the  silence  spills 
With   reed-like  music   shaken   from   the 
weeds : 

270 


Autumn  Etchings 

She  takes  my  hand 

And  leads 

Softly  my  soul  into  the  Fairyland, 
The  wonder-world  of  gold  and  chrysolite, 
She  builds  there  at  the  haunted  edge  of 
night. 


VI 
NIGHT 

Autumn  woods  the  winds  tramp  down 
Sowing  acorns  left  and  right, 
Where,  in  rainy  raiment,  Night 

Tiptoes,  rustling  wild  her  gown 
Dripping  in  the  moon's  pale  light, 

In  the  moonlight  wan  that  hurries 
Trailing  now  a  robe  of  cloud 
Now  of  glimmer,  ghostly  browed, 

Through  the  leaves  whose  wildness  skur- 
ries, 

And  whose  tatters  swirl  and  swarm 

Round  her  in  her  stormy  starkness ; 

She  who  takes  my  heart  that  leaps, 

That  exults,  and  onward  sweeps, 

Like  a  red  leaf  in  the  darkness 

And  the  tumult  of  the  storm. 
271 


Wood- Ways 

WOOD-WAYS 


O  roads,  O  paths,  O  ways  that  lead 
Through  woods  where  all  the  oak-trees 

bleed 

With  autumn !  and  the  frosty  reds 
Of  fallen  leaves  make  whispering  beds 
For  winds  to  toss  and  turn  upon,  — 
Like  restless  Care  that  can  not  sleep,  — 
Beneath  whose  rustling  tatters  wan 
The  last  wildflow'r  is  buried  deep : 
One  way  of  all  I  love  to  wend, 
That  towards  the  golden  sunset  goes, 
A  way,  o'er  which  the  red  leaf  blows, 
With  an  old  gateway  at  its  end, 
Where  Summer,  that  my  soul  o'erflows, 
My  summer  of  love,  blooms  like  a  wild- 
wood  rose. 

II 

O  winter  ways,  when  spears  of  ice 
Arm  every  bough !   and  in  a  vice 
Of  iron  frost  the  streams  are  held ; 
When,  where  the  deadened  oak  was  felled 
272 


The  Charcoal-Burner's  Hut 

For  firewood,  deep  the  snow  and  sleet,  — 
Where     lone     the     muffled     woodsmen 

toiled,  — 

Are  trampled  down  by  heavy  feet, 
And  network  of  the  frost  is  spoiled, 
O  road  I  love  to  take  again !  — 
While  gray  the  heaven  sleets  or  snows,  — 
At  whose  far  end.  at  twilight's  close, 
Glimmers  an  oldtime  window-pane, 
Where  spring,  that  is  my  heart's  repose; 
My  spring  of  love,  like  a  great  fire  glows. 


THE  CHARCOAL-BURXER'S  HUT 

Deep  in  a  valley,  green  with  ancient  beech, 
And    wandered    through   of   one    small, 

silent  stream,  — 
Whose  bear-grassed  banks  bristled  with 

brush  and  burr, 

Tick-trefoil  and  the  thorny  marigold. 
Bush-clover  and  the  wahoo,   hung  with 

pods, 

And  mass  on  mass  of  bugled  jewelweed. 
Horsemint  and  doddered  ragweed,  dense, 

unkempt,  — 
I  came  upon  a  charcoal-burner's  hut, 

18  -V3 


The  Charcoal-Burner's  Hut 

Abandoned  and  forgotten  long  ago; 
His  hut  and  weedy  pit,  where  once  the 

wood 
Smouldered  both  day  and  night  like  some 

wild  forge, 
A  wildwood   forge,   glaring  as   wild-cat 

eyes. 

A  mossy  roof,  black,  fallen  in  decay, 
And  rotting  logs,  exuding  sickly  mold 
And     livid     fungi,     and     the     tottering 

wreck, 
Rude  remnants,  of  a  chimney,  clay  and 

sticks, 
Were  all  that  now  remained  to  say  that 

once, 

In  time  not  so  remote,  one  labored  here, 
Labored  and  lived,  his  world  bound  by 

these  woods : 

A  solitary  soul  whose  life  was  toil, 
Toil,  grimy  and  unlovely:  sad,  recluse, 
A    life,    perhaps,    that    here    went    out 

alone, 
Alone  and  unlamented. 

Lost  forever, 
Haply,   somewhere,   in  some  far  wilder 

spot, 

Far  in  the  forest,  lone  as  was  his  life, 
A  crave,  an  isolated  grave,  may  mark,  — 
274 


The  Charcoal-Burner's  Hut 

Tangled  with  cat-brier  and  the  strawberry- 
bush,  — 

The  place  he  lies  in;   undistinguishable 
From  the  surrounding  forest  where  the 

lynx 
Whines  in  the  moonlight  and  the  she-fox 

whelps. 

A  life  as  some  wood-fungus  now   for 
gotten  : 
The  Indian-pipe,  or  ghost-flower,  here  that 

rises 

And  slowly  rots  away  in  autumn  rains. 
Or,  it  may  be,  a  comrade  carved  a  line 
Of  date  and  death  on  some  old  trunk  of 

tree, 

Whose  letters  long  ago  th'  erasing  rust 
Of  moss  and  gradual  growth  of  drowsy 

years 

Slowly  obliterated :  or,  may  be, 
The  rock,  all  rudely  lettered,  like  his  life, 
Set  up  above  him  by  some  kindly  hand, 
A  tree's  great,  grasping  roots  have  over 
thrown, 
Where  lichens  long  ago  effaced  his  name. 


275 


In  Clay 

IN    CLAY 

Here  went  a  horse  with  heavy  laboring 
stride 

Along  the  woodland  side ; 
Deep  in  the  clay  his  iron  hoof-marks  show, 

Patient  and  slow, 
Where  with  his  human  burden  yesterday 

He  passed  this  way. 

Would  that  this  wind  that  tramples  'round 
me  here, 

Among  the  sad  and  sere 
Of  winter-weary  forests,  were  a  steed,  — 

Mighty  indeed, 
And  tameless  as  the  tempest  of  its  pace,  — 

Upon  whom  man  might  place 
The  boundless  burden  of  his  mortal  cares, 

Life's  griefs,  despairs, 
And  ruined  dreams  that  bow  the  spirit  so ! 

And  let  him  go 

Bearing  them  far  from  the  sad  world,  ah 
me! 

Leaving  it  free 

As  in  that  Age  of  Gold,  of  which  men  tell, 
When  Earth  was  glad  and  gods  came  here 
to  dwell. 

276 


Gray  Skies 


GRAY    SKIES 

It  is  not  well 
For  me  to  dwell 
On  what  upon  that  day  befell, 
On  that  dark  day  of  fall  befell ; 
When  through  the  landscape,  bowed  and 

bent, 

With  Love  and  Death  I  slowly  went, 
And  wild  rain  swept  the  firmament. 

Ah,  Love  that  sighed ! 

Ah,  Joy  that  died ! 

And  Heart  that  humbled  all  its  pride ; 
In  vain  that  humbled  all  its  pride ! 
The  roses  ruin  and  rot  away 
Upon  your  grave  where  grasses  sway, 
And  all  is  dim,  and  all  is  gray. 


SUNSET   DREAMS 

The  moth  and  beetle  wing  about 

The  garden  ways  of  other  days ; 
Above  the  hills,  a  fiery  shout 
Of  gold,  the  day  dies  slowly  out, 
277 


Sunset  Dreams 

Like    some    wild    blast    a    huntsman 
blows : 

And  o'er  the  hills  my  Fancy  goes, 
Following  the  sunset's  golden  call 
Unto  a  vine-hung  garden  wall, 
Where  she  awaits  me  in  the  gloom, 

Between  the  lily  and  the  rose, 
With  arms  and  lips  of  warm  perfume, 

The  Dream  of  Love  my  Fancy  knows. 

The  glow-worm  and  the  firefly  glow 
Among  the  ways  of  bygone  days  ; 

A  golden  shaft  shot  from  a  bow 

Of  silver,  star  and  moon  swing  low 
Above  the  hills  where  twilight  lies : 
And  o'er  the  hills  my  Longing  flies, 

Following  the  star's  far,  arrowed  gold, 

Unto  a  gate  where,  as  of  old, 
She  waits  amid  the  rose  and  rue, 

With    star-bright    hair    and    night-dark 

eyes, 

The    Dream,    to   whom    my   heart    is 
true, 

My  Dream  of  Love  that  never  dies. 


278 


Mendicants 


MENDICANTS 

Bleak,  in  dark  rags  of  clouds,  the  day 
begins, 

That  passed  so  splendidly  but  yesterday 

Wrapped  in  magnificence  of  gold  and  gray. 

And  poppy  and  rose.  Now,  burdened  as 
with  sins, 

Their  wildness  clad  in  fogs,  like  coats  of 
skins, 

Tattered  and  streaked  with  rain,  gaunt, 
clogged  with  clay, 

The  mendicant  Hours  take  their  sombre 
way 

Westward  o'er  Earth,  to  which  no  sunray 
wins. 

Their  splashing  sandals  ooze;  their  foot 
steps  drip, 

Puddle  and  brim  with  moisture ;  their  sad 
hair 

Is  tagged  with  haggard  drops,  that  with 
their  eyes' 

Slow  streams  are  blent ;  each  sullen  finger 
tip 

Rivers ;  while  'round  them,  in  the  drenched 
air, 

Wearies  the  wind  of  their  perpetual  sighs. 
279 


Winter  Rain 

WINTER    RAIN 
Wild  clouds  roll  up,  slag-dark  and  slaty 


And  in  the  oaks  the  sere  wind  sobs  and 

sighs, 

Weird  as  a  word  a  man  before  he  dies 
Mutters  beneath  his  breath  yet  fears  to  say : 
The  rain  drives  down ;  and  by  each  forest 

way 
Each  dead  leaf  drips,  and  murmurings 

arise 
As  of  fantastic  footsteps,  —  one  who 

flies, 

Whispering,  —  the  dim  eidolon  of  the  day. 
Now  is  the  wood  a  place  where  phantoms 

house : 
Around  each  tree  wan  ghosts  of  flowers 

crowd, 
And  spectres  of  sweet  weeds  that  once 

were  fair, 
Rustling;    and  through  the  bleakness  of 

bare  boughs 
A  voice  is  heard,  now  low,  now  stormy 

loud, 

As  if  the  ghosts  of  all  the  leaves  were 
there. 

280 


Mariners 

MARINERS 
(Class  Poem,  Read  June,  1886) 

A  beardless  crew  we  launched  our  little 
boat; 

Laughed  at  its  lightness;   joyed  to  see  it 
float, 

Veer  in  the  wind,  and,  with  the  freshen 
ing  gale, 

Bend  o'er  the  foaming  prow  the  swollen 
sail. 

No  fears  were  ours  within  that  stanch- 
built  barque; 

No  fears  were  ours  'though  all  the  west 
was  dark, 

And  overhead  were  unknown  stars;   the 
ring 

Of  ocean  sailless  and  no  bird  a-wing: 

Yet    there    was     light;    radiance    that 
dimmed  the  stars 

Dancing  like  bubbles  in  Night's  sapphire 
jars. 

We   knew   not   what:    only   adown   the 
skies 

A  shape  that  led  us,  with  sidereal  eyes, 
281 


Mariners 

Brow-bound    and    shod    with    elemental 

fire, 
Beckoning  us  onward  like  the  god  Desire. 


Brisk  blew  the  breeze;    and  through  the 

starry  gloam, 

Flung  from  our  prow,  flew  white  the  fur 
rowed  foam.  — 
Long,    long   we   sailed;   and   now   have 

reached  our  goal. 
Come,  let  us  rest  us  here  and  call  the 

roll. 

How  few  we  are!    Alas,  alas,  how  few! 
How  many  perished!     Every  storm  that 

blew 

Swept  from  our  deck  or  from  our  stag 
gering  mast 
Some  well-loved  comrade  in  the  boiling 

vast. 
Wildly  we  saw  them  sink  beneath  our 

prow, 

Helpless  to  aid;  pallid  of  face  and  brow, 
Lost  in  the  foam  we  saw  them  sink  or 

fade 

Beneath  the  tempest's  rolling  cannonade. 
They  sank;   but  where  they  sank,  above 

the  wave 

282 


Mariners 

A  corposant  danced,  a  flame  that  marked 

their  grave; 
And  o'er  the  flame,  whereon  were  fixed 

our  eyes, 

An  albatross,  huge  in  volcanic  skies. 
They  died ;  but  not  in  vain  their  stubborn 

strife, 
The  zeal  that  held  them  onward,  great  of 

life: 
They  too  are  with  us;   they,  in  spite  of 

death, 
Have  reached  here  first.    Upon  our  brows 

their  breath 
Breathes  softly,  vaguely,  sweetly  as  the 

breeze 

From  isles  of  spice  in  summer-haunted  seas. 
From  palaces  and  pinnacles  of  mist 
The  sunset  builds  in  heaven's  amethyst, 
Beyond  yon  headland  where  the  billows 

break, 
Perhaps  they  beckon  now ;  the  winds  that 

shake 
These  tamarisks,   that  never   bowed  to 

storm, 
Haply   are   but   their   voices   filled   with 

charm 

Bidding  us  rest  from  labor ;  toil  no  more ; 
Draw  up  our  vessel  on  the  happy  shore; 

283 


Mariners 

And  of  the  lotus  of  content  and  peace, 
Growing  far  inland,  eat,  and  never  cease 
To  dream  the  dreams  that  keep  the  heart 

still  young, 

Hearing  forever  how  the  foam  is  flung 
Beneath   the    cliff;    forgetting   all    life's 

care; 
Easing  the  soul  of  all  its  long  despair. 

Let  us   forget  how   once  within   that 

barque, 
Like  some  swift  eagle  sweeping  through 

the  dark, 
We  weighed  the  sun;    we  weighed  the 

farthest  stars; 

Traced  the  dim  continents  of  fiery  Mars ; 
Measured  the  vapory  planets  whose  long 

run 
Takes  centuries  to  gird  their  glimmering 

sun: 

Let  us  forget  how  oft  the  crystal  moun 
tains 
Of  the  white  moon  we  searched;    and 

plumbed  her  fountains, 
That  hale  the  waters  of  the  seonian  deep 
In  ebb  and  flow,  and  in  her  power  keep; 
Let  us  remember  her  but  as  a  gem, 
A  mighty  pearl,  placed  in  Night's  anadem : 
284 


Mariners 

Let  us  forget  how  once  we  pierced  the 

flood, 

Fathomed  its  groves  of  coral,  red  as  blood, 
Branching  and  blooming  underneath  our 

keel, 
Through  which  like  birds  the  nautilus 

and  eel, 
The   rainbowed  conch  and  irised   fishes 

swept, 
And  where  the  sea-snake  like  a  long  weed 

slept. 
Here  let  us  dream  our  dreams :  let  Helen 

bare 
Her  white  breast  for  us;    and  let  Dido 

share 

Her  rich  feast  with  us;  or  let  Lalage 
Laugh  in  our  eyes  as  once,  all  lovingly, 
She  laughed  for  Flaccus.     We  are  done 

with  all 
The  lusts  of  life!  its  loves  are  ours.    Let 

fall 

The  Catilines!   the  Qesars!   and  in  Gaul 
Their  legions  perish!     And  let  Phillip's 

son 

In  Ammon's  desert  die;   and  never  a  one 
Lead  back  to  Greece  of  all  his  conquering 

line 
From  gemmed  Hydaspes. 

285 


Mariners 

Here  we  set  our  shrine! 
Here  on  this  headland  templed  of  God's 

peaks, 

Where  Beauty  only  to  our  worship  speaks 
Her  mighty  truths,   gazing  beyond   the 

shore 

Into  the  heart  of  God:  her  eyes  a  door 
Wherethrough   we   see  the  dreams,   the 

mysteries, 
That  grew  to  form  in  the  Art  that  once 

was  Greece: 
Making  them  live  once  more  for  us,  the 

shapes 
That   filled   the   woods,    the   mountains, 

and  the  capes 

Of  Hellas:   Dryad,  Oread,  and  Faun; 
Naiad  and  Nereid,  and  all  the  hosts  of 

Dawn. 


286 


WOMAN   OR  — WHAT? 

"  "TTT  is  a  subject  suited  to  the 
I  genius  of  the  poet  who  wrote 
'  Bad  Dreams/ "  remarked 
the  Professor  as  he  abandoned  him 
self  wearily  to  the  luxuriance  of  his 
armchair.  What  was  there  to  be 
done?  Absolutely  nothing;  and  the 
fabric  of  the  mystery  accumulating 
around  the  letter  and  the  lady  began 
to  occupy  so  great  a  portion  of  the 
gray  matter  of  his  brain  that,  instead 
of  viewing  the  dream  merely  as  a 
dream,  he  was  almost  persuaded  to 
regard  it,  in  connection  with  these 
other  things,  in  the  light  of  an  actual 
occurrence,  so  vividly  was  it  im 
pressed  upon  his  mind. 

It  might  have  been  an  hour,  or 
only  the  fractional  part  of  an  hour, 
287 


Woman  or  —  What? 

that  he  sat  there  stolidly  staring  into 
vacancy,  when  with  a  "  What  can  it 
mean  ?  —  Strange !  —  But  this  won't 
do !  —  I  '11  become  as  fantastic  as 
night  if  I  continue  in  this  manner," 
he  arose  and  lighting  the  gas,  pro 
ceeded  to  the  window.  Drawing  the 
heavy  oriental  curtains  that  during 
the  daytime  made  perpetual  twilight 
of  the  room,  he  stood  looking  out  upon 
the  deserted  square.  It  was  near 
midnight  and  late  in  August.  The 
waning  moon  shone  above  the  black 
roofs,  subduing  and  softening  all  the 
ugly  angles  of  the  buildings  into  sil 
very  blurs  of  shadow,  and  touching 
with  pearl  the  tops  of  a  few  sickly 
maples  that  kept  up  a  withered  rust 
ling  under  his  window.  Abruptly 
turning  away  from  the  serene  sad 
ness  of  the  night,  the  Professor  moved 
in  the  direction  of  his  writing  table, 
intending  to  obliterate  the  persistent 
sub-consciousness  of  the  dream  in  a 
288 


Woman  or  —  What? 

practical  appeal  to  a  book  and  a 
pipe. 

A  great  student  of  mental  philos 
ophy,  it  was  difficult  for  him  to  delib 
erately  relegate  the  analysis  of  his 
condition  to  that  puzzling  limbo 
wherein  the  uninitiated  easily  discard 
all  visionary  impressions.  Although 
an  able  psychologist,  he  did  not  at 
tain  to  this  conclusion  of  mental  agi 
tation  at  one  bound;  it  was  a  slow 
and  gradual  process  assisted  by  nu 
merous  soporific  puffs  of  the  pipe  and 
concentrated  attention  on  the  volume 
before  him.  At  last  he  laid  them  aside, 
the  degree  of  indifference  desired  hav 
ing  been  attained.  He  was  about  to 
retire,  to  drown  in  sleep  whatever 
speculations  his  fancy  might  conjure 
up  again,  when  his  eye  lighted  upon  a 
manuscript  translation  he  had  been  en 
gaged  upon  for  the  past  several  days. 

It  was  late,  but  he  could  not  resist 
taking  the  writing  up  and  glancing 
19  289 


Woman  or  —  What? 

over  it  now  that  it  was  completed. 
He  did  not  care  to  compare  it  with 
the  original  German  scrawl,  with  its 
angular  and  distorted  letters  in  faded 
ink  and  its  ragged  and  bewildering 
blots,  that,  after  infinite  application, 
he  had  succeeded  in  deciphering.  He 
was  done  with  that.  And  now  he  felt 
a  certain  degree  of  satisfaction  in 
looking  upon  the  finished  work  as  it 
confronted  him  with  its  new  face,  the 
familiar  English  one,  which  he  had 
given  it.  His  efforts  had  been  re 
warded  by  what  appeared  to  be  a  dis 
connected  legend,  detached  from  a 
rich  mass  of  now  scattered,  and  per 
haps  lost,  German  folk-lore,  relating 
to  some  remote  ancestors  on  his 
father's  side.  He  had  expected  some 
thing  quite  different  from  the  final 
result  of  the  writing  when  he  under 
took  its  translation. 

The  manuscript  had  been  included 
among   a   lot  of  old   papers,   faded 
290 


Woman  or — What? 

almost  beyond  deciphering,  of  a 
grand-uncle  of  his,  Herr  Hermann, 
a  bachelor  and  a  misanthrope,  who, 
recently  dying,  had  left  to  the  Pro 
fessor,  as  sole  heir  and  last  scion  of 
the  once  mighty  House  of  Otto,  the 
decrepit  and  partially  ruined  remains 
of  an  ancient  castle  on  the  Rhine, 
along  with  a  musty  bundle  of  yellow 
parchment  manuscripts. 

The  knowledge  of  this  hitherto  un 
known  relationship,  together  with  the 
importance  of  being  sole  representa 
tive  of  a  powerful  line  of  German 
pf alzgraf s  —  who  in  mediaeval  times 
had  ruled  the  Rhine  lands  with  a 
hand  of  iron  —  was  very  disturbing 
to  the  gentle-minded  professor.  He 
immediately  busied  himself  with  in 
vestigating  the  authenticity  of  these 
new  genealogical  claims,  and  con 
firming  the  order  of  his  descent. 
And  so  at  last  was  established  his 
right  to  the  coat-of-arms,  —  which 
291 


Woman  or — What? 

he  had  always  had  stamped  on  his 
writing  paper  and  envelopes  as  a 
mere  matter  of  fashion,  —  consisting 
of  three  spiked  bludgeons,  argent  on 
a  field  sable,  cresting  which,  above  a 
wreath  of  golden  thistle,  shone  out  a 
blood-red  gauntlet.  He  could  not  say 
that  he  was  proud  of  being  the  de 
scendant  of  so  wicked  a  line  of  feudal 
counts  and  viscounts,  or  of  the  legacy 
of  the  tottering  and  tumbling  castle, 
litigation  had  about  stripped  to  a 
kreutzer's  worth  of  antique  finery 
and  furniture.  His  coat-of-arms  was 
useful  to  him;  his  castle  was  not. 
The  one  was  an  everyday  visual 
demonstration;  the  other  merely  a 
visionary  expectation  appertaining 
more  to  the  past  than  to  the  present. 
Both  were  curious,  likewise  interest 
ing  to  him  as  directly  relating  to 
himself  and  as  being  identified  with 
his  name  and  blood.  Yet  he,  in  this 
new  country,  speaking  a  different  lan- 
292 


Woman  or — What? 

guage,  living  such  a  different  life, 
seemed  so  far  removed,  so  remote 
from  all  that  they  suggested  and 
symbolized,  that  it  seemed  impos 
sible  that  it  should  be  so,  and  also 
preposterous. 

The  translation  of  the  manuscripts 
left  him  by  Herr  Hermann  would 
have  been  a  difficult  task  for  even  a 
native-born  German  scholar,  how 
much  more  so  for  him,  written  as 
they  were  in  an  ancient,  small,  crab 
bed  and  aguish  hand,  hardly  decipher 
able.  As  it  was,  after  several  days 
of  vexatious  vacillation  between  con 
firmations,  doubts  and  guesses,  the 
Professor  had  only  been  able  to  secure 
the  following  from  the  deplorable 
mass  of  obscurity: 

"  Pfalzgraf  Otto,  from  whom  the 
Hermanns  are  descended,  was  a  man 
of  ferocious  and  brutal  nature.  Not 
only  did  he  delight  in  the  torture 
and  oppression  of  his  peasantry  and 
293 


Woman  or — What? 

people,  but  it  was  his  boast  that  he 
could  blaspheme  God  and  His  angels 
with  impunity;  that  if  there  was  a 
God  why  did  He  not  protect  the  weak 
and  innocent  —  to  say  nothing  of  re 
senting  an  insult  to  Himself?  No! 
there  was  no  God;  and  what  the 
foolish  people  worshipped  was  merely 
a  creation  of  the  minds  of  the  igno 
rant  and  licentious  monks,  of  whom 
the  Pope  was  the  great  arch-hypo 
crite  and  scoundrel.  And  as  to  the 
Bible  —  why,  that  was  merely  a  fab 
rication  of  superstition  of  the  He 
brews,  identical  with  the  similar 
mythologies  of  Greece  and  Italy. 
The  Old  Testament  was  the  record  of 
many  myths ;  the  New,  of  but  one  — 
Christ.  Indeed,  if  Otto  believed  in 
anything  it  must  have  been  Satan 
himself,  with  whom,  it  was  whis 
pered,  he  had  struck  up  a  contract, 
swearing  cheek  by  jowl,  for  services 
received,  one  tempestuous  night  in 
294 


Woman  or — What? 

the  Harz  mountains,  to  be  the  Fiend's 
leal  brother-in-arms  in  this  world, 
and  in  case  there  did  prove  to  be 
another,  then  forever  after  for  all 
eternity. 

"  The  liberty  and  license  of  his 
predatory  retainers  were  limited  only 
by  his  own.  The  goods  of  the  hus 
bandman,  the  wife  and  the  daughter 
of  the  husbandman,  were  the  ruffian 
sport  of  this  despot  and  his  butchers. 
Murder,  fire,  and  rapine  were  the 
three  croaking  ravens  that  attended, 
as  black  familiars,  the  blacker  banner 
of  Graff  von  Otto  when  he  led  his 
bearded  and  beer-blown  bullies,  with 
curse  and  song,  from  the  ponderous 
gates  of  the  Schloss. 

"  It  was  by  might  alone  that 
the  Pfalzgraf  had  won  three  wives. 
These  had  all  died  suddenly  when 
they  had  ceased  to  be  pleasing  to 
the  fastidious  monster,  —  in  horrible 
agonies,  it  was  affirmed  by  eye  wit- 

295 


Woman  or  —  What? 

nesses,  and  while  banqueting  in  the 
great  hall.  Graff  von  Otto  had  seen 
some  younger,  some  more  flaxen- 
haired  fraiilein  who  interested  him 
more,  pleased  him  more  perhaps,  than 
the  present  Pfalzgrafinn.  His  con 
fidential  servant  had  received  secret 
orders  —  but  who  shall  say  how  the 
terrible  mistake  was  made  of  spicing 
the  boiled  wine  of  the  last  incum 
bent  with  wolf's-bane  instead  of  sweet 
basil? 

"  It  was  in  the  year  14 —  that 
the  Graff  determined  to  take  unto 
himself  another  wife,  the  fourth  it  is 
said,  and  this  time  his  choice  had 
fallen  upon  the  daughter  of  the  re 
spectable  burgermeister  of  Muhl- 
hofen.  He  had  only  to  make  public 
his  intention  of  interesting  himself 
in  the  welfare  of  any  maiden  in  the 
community  and  straightway,  behold, 
all  other  suitors  disappeared;  some 
vanished  mysteriously  but  utterly, 
296 


Woman  or — What? 

while  others  discreetly  retired,  gen 
erously  leaving  the  field  open  to  his 
worshipful  possession,  while  the 
parents  meekly  and  hastily  arranged 
about  the  dowry.  In  this  case,  how 
ever,  there  were  murmurs  of  dis 
approval,  discontent,  and  even  of 
resistance.  For  you  must  remember 
the  villagers  of  Miihlhofen  had  the  re 
cent  monstrous  deaths  of  the  Graffs 
former  wives  before  them  as  an  ever 
lasting  warning  as  to  the  probable 
fate  that  awaited  any  future  succes 
sor.  Moreover,  this  was  the  daughter 
of  their  beloved  burgermeister ;  and 
a  more  beautiful  and  lovable  damsel 
than  she  was  not  to  be  found  in  the 
Rheinpfalz. 

"  It  came  to  pass  that  Otto  and  his 
robbers  got  wind  of  this  disaffection 
of  Miihlhofen,  through  spies  some 
said,  through  his  sworn  friend  and 
boon  companion,  the  Fiend,  others 
said.  However  it  was,  one  after- 
297 


Woman  or  —  What? 

noon,  with  a  volley  of  oaths,  armed  to 
the  teeth,  he  and  his  desperadoes 
galloped  thunderingly  over  the  draw 
bridge  of  the  Schloss  down  the  wind 
ing  road  of  rock  and  root,  to  wreak 
vengeance  upon  the  unsuspecting 
burgers  of  Miihlhofen. 

"  '  Not  one  rat  of  them  shall  es 
cape!  Fools  and  sots!  I  will  reduce 
the  place  to  a  desert,  roof  and  cellar, 
and  make  an  owl's  roost  of  it ! ' 

"  But  in  the  decrees  of  destiny 
this  was  not  to  be.  For  as  he  rode 
breakneck,  devil-may-care  over  stock 
and  stone  through  the  forest,  that 
stretched  its  dark  miles  between  his 
castle  and  the  village,  he  happened  to 
startle  a  wolf,  snow-white,  as  it  were 
a  shaft  of  moonlight.  Miihlhofen, 
burgers,  and  burgermeister  were  all 
forgotten  in  the  excitement  of  the 
chase  and  the  securing  of  such  a 
quarry.  He  must  have  the  skin  of 
the  white  wolf  to  match  the  whiter 
298 


Woman  or — What? 

skin  of  his  bride.  In  his  eagerness 
the  Pfalzgraf  never  once  noticed  that 
he  at  first  had  distanced  and  then 
completely  lost  his  retinue  of  re 
tainers.  Not  a  solitary  junker  fol 
lowed  him.  Blind  to  everything  but 
the  beast  before  him,  onward  he 
spurred,  mad  with  the  intoxication 
of  pursuit,  the  wolf  gleaming  and 
bounding  through  the  tangled  and 
deepening  vistas  of  the  trees,  now 
vanishing  like  a  long  ray  of  hurrying 
moonlight,  now  reappearing  like  a 
silvery  shaft  of  shadow. 

"  At  last  the  Graff  was  compelled 
to  abandon  his  horse;  and  without 
even  taking  the  trouble  to  tie  him  to 
some  tree,  eagerly  continued  the 
chase  on  foot  among  the  wild  rocks 
and  matted  roots  of  the  forest.  At 
last  he  came  to  a  tar-black  torrent 
that  foamed  darkly  down  savage  and 
bewildering  stones  through  fantastic 
and  hideous  foliage.  Where  the  sul- 
299 


Woman  or — What? 

len  water  emptied  itself  into  a  dismal 
pool,  covered  with  a  sulphurous  sort 
of  scum  and  green  and  yellow  duck 
weed,  he  saw  what  appeared  to  be 
the  white  wolf  standing  outlined 
against  the  sombre  crimson  of  the 
west,  seemingly  awaiting  him  on  a 
rock  high  above  the  sinister  water. 
With  a  ferocious  laugh  of  exultation, 
stumbling  and  clutching  at  the  evil 
and  hairy  weeds  and  roots  that  cov 
ered  the  hillside  and  the  rocks,  Graff 
von  Otto  hurled  himself  awkwardly 
and  heavily  in  his  weight  of  armor, 
sword  in  hand,  at  the  creature  quietly 
awaiting  him  there  above  the  stag 
nant  pool. 

"  But  what  had  become  of  the 
wolf  ?  —  That  was  no  wolf  that  con 
fronted  him  with  burning  gaze!  but 
a  woman,  white  as  a  star  and  with 
eyes  of  yellow  fire,  like  lucid  topazes, 
and  hair  as  black  as  a  stormy  night. 
She  looked  at  him  steadily,  and  the 
300 


Woman  or  —  What? 

Pfalzgraf  felt  the  very  marrow  of  his 
bones  and  his  heart's  blood  freezing, 
slowly  freezing,  beneath  that  cat-like 
gaze.  Then  she  spoke;  and  the 
sound  of  her  voice  was  as  the  sound 
of  distant  winds  in  the  moonlit  woods, 
mixed  with  the  music  of  limpid 
waters  falling  over  pebbles  of  spar 
into  basins  of  crystal,  and  yet  terrible 
as  doom: 

"  '  Blasphemer  of  God !  behold  in 
me  the  hereditary  spirit  of  the 
House  of  Otto.  I  appear  only  to 
those  who  are  about  to  perish  vio 
lently.  Farewell ! '  .  .  . 

"  It  is  said  that  many  days  elapsed 
before  they  found  the  body  of  the 
Pfalzgraf,  bloated  and  blistered  be 
yond  recognition,  tangled  in  his  rusty 
mail,  among  the  slime  and  oozy  spawn 
and  waterweeds  of  a  forest  pool." 

The  Professor  laid  aside  the  manu 
script.    The  fact  that  he  was  the  sole 
301 


Woman  or — What? 

descendant,  the  only  surviving  rep 
resentative,  of  such  a  family  was 
gruesome  to  him  to  say  the  least.  Yet, 
repellant  and  attractive  at  the  same 
time,  he  brooded  over  the  idea  with 
a  fascination  that  he  could  not 
explain. 

Again  the  insistent  expression  of 
the  eyes  of  the  lady  of  his  dream  oc 
curred  to  him,  and  his  mind  would 
persist  in  associating  that  look  with 
a  certain  passage  in  the  manuscript. 
He  understood  it  now,  yes;  but  he 
must  sleep  and  see  how  all  this  ratio 
cination  bore  the  explanation  in  the 
rational  light  of  morning.  If  he 
again  received  a  letter,  precisely  sim 
ilar  to  the  two  already  received  on 
the  preceding  mornings,  and  if  the 
lady  of  his  dreams  of  the  two  preced 
ing  nights  again  visited  him  to-night 
with  the  same  peculiar  look,  then  these, 
the  lady  and  the  letters,  must  be  some 
thing  more  than  mere  coincidences. 
302 


Woman  or — What? 

It  was  three  o'clock  before  he  fell 
into  a  frail,  uneasy  slumber,  wherein 
Graff  von  Otto  and  his  bandit  bravos 
played  battledore  and  shuttlecock 
with  milk-white  wolves'  heads  and  the 
glowing  golden  eyes  of  star-white 
women:  that  finally  resolved  them 
selves  into  the  eyes  of  one  woman,  the 
woman  of  his  dreams,  who  regarded 
him  steadily  and  fearfully  from  a 
gradually  decreasing  distance. 

The  day  was  far  advanced;  in 
deed,  the  buhl  clock  on  his  mantel  had 
chimed  the  hour  of  noon  ere  he  arose. 
He  had  dreaded  it  as  we  dread  the 
inevitable,  but  would  have  been  dis 
appointed,  after  having  dreamed  that 
dream  again,  had  the  letter  not  been 
there.  There  it  was,  however,  char 
acterized  by  its  foreign-looking  en 
velope  of  vivid  yellow  inclosing  a  slip 
of  spotless  paper,  perfectly  blank,  and 
nothing  more.  Not  a  line.  He  curi 
ously  examined  the  address.  It  was 
303 


Woman  or  —  What? 

correct,  and  written  in  a  fine,  angu 
lar,  female  hand.  The  script  was 
German,  but  the  postmark  was  Amer 
ican  —  his  own  city's.  Placing  it  in 
an  inside  pocket  the  Professor  left  his 
apartments;  they  seemed  to  com 
press  and  stifle  his  soul  that  seemed 
dilating  and  expanding  beyond  his 
comprehension  and  unto  —  what  ? 
He  was  as  one  dazed,  wandering  he 
knew  not  whither.  Some  mysterious 
influence  seemed  governing  all  his 
movements.  He  appeared  to  have  no 
will  of  his  own.  Could  it  be  that  he 
was  on  the  verge  of  some  serious  sick 
ness,  and  did  this  persistent  dream, 
always  the  same,  never  varying  an 
iota  in  its  strange  details,  indicate 
this?  Were  the  letters  merely  illu 
sions?  At  this  thought  mechanically 
he  felt  in  his  pocket,  drew  forth  the 
letter  that  had  arrived  that  morning 
and  stared  at  it  as  at  some  curious 
and  horrible  thing,  then  slowly  tore 
304 


Woman  or  —  What? 

it  across,  shredding  it  into  small  bits 
which  he  tossed  into  the  street. 

Now  he  would  go  into  the  country. 
There  he  would  forget  it  all.  In  a 
long  ramble  dissipate  this  haunting 
thought,  this  nightmare  which  had 
made  horror  of  three  past  days  and 
nights.  .  .  . 

The  electric  lights  had  commenced 
to  dot  the  evening  glimmer  as  he  re 
turned  on  foot  by  an  unfrequented 
way.  He  was  in  an  unknown  quarter 
of  the  town  which  had  been  his  resi 
dence  for  twenty  years ;  a  quarter  dis 
tinguished  by  nothing  that  he  knew; 
its  houses  older  than  any  he  had 
ever  seen  in  any  other  part  of  the 
city;  most  of  them  great,  square, 
colonial-columned  buildings  sitting 
far  back  from  the  street  each  one  in 
its  grove  of  old  trees.  In  the  course 
of  his  saunter,  curiosity  led  him  into 
a  quaint  old  cemetery  with  queer, 
gaunt  tombstones  and  cellared  vaults. 
20  305 


Woman  or  —  What? 

Rusty  iron  railings  enclosed  little 
squares  of  myrtled  and  mounded  si 
lence  pathetic  with  tottering  or  fallen 
headstones.  Here  and  there  flat  and 
lichened  tombs  covered  and  hid  a  sad 
handful  of  dust  and  remembrance. 
The  fireflies  were  twinkling  like  elfin 
lanterns,  or  will-o'-the-wisps,  up  and 
down  the  plaintive  vistas  of  elm  and 
cedar  and  weeping  willow.  A  pleas 
ant  feeling  of  melancholy,  dreamy 
and  undefined,  pervaded  the  soul  of 
the  Professor  as  he  strolled  among 
the  gray,  neglected  graves.  He  had 
forgotten  entirely  the  disagreeable 
things  that  had  impelled  him  away 
from  the  city  at  noon.  The  letter,  the 
lady,  even  Herr  Hermann  and  his 
unholy  manuscript  were  completely 
forgotten.  Absorbed  upon  the  sor 
rowful  beauty  of  the  neglected  place 
in  which  so  strangely  he  found  him 
self,  he  continued  to  wander  among 
the  tall  weeds  and  flowers  that  had 


Woman  or  —  What? 

overgrown  all  its  walks.  He  had  in 
tended  going  in  a  quite  different  direc 
tion,  but  suddenly  seemed  compelled, 
by  some  strange  power,  in  an  oppo 
site  one  from  that  he  desired  to  take ; 
and  in  a  little  while  he  found  himself, 
like  the  poet  in  Ulalume,  standing  in 
the  uncertain  twilight  before  a  "  le- 
gended  tomb,"  a  looming  and  crum 
bling  vault  of  mossy  stone  at  the 
extreme  western  end  of  the  cemetery. 
Could  he  be  mistaken  ?  No,  he  was 
not.  There  under  the  sorrowful  trees, 
near  the  ghostly  entrance  of  the  tomb, 
among  a  wilderness  of  weeds  and 
roses  and  ruined  headstones,  wavered 
the  white  of  a  woman's  dress.  He 
had  hardly  recovered  from  his  sur 
prise,  and,  embarrassed, —  for  he  was 
a  very  shy,  retired  man,  —  was  about 
to  turn  away,  when  the  wearer  of  the 
white  dress  came  hastily  and  eagerly 
towards  him.  Stopping  suddenly  in 
front  of  him  she  regarded  him  fixedly 
307 


Woman  or  —  What? 

from  head  to  foot  as  if  desirous  of 
identifying  before  addressing  him. 

He,  by  the  fast-fading  light  of  the 
west,  dimly  discerned  that  she  was 
very  beautiful  and  very  pale.  A 
large,  foreign  hat  of  some  fleecy 
material,  white  and  white-feathered, 
partially  shaded  her  face,  concealing 
her  eyes  completely.  The  grace  and 
elegance  of  her  form  would  have  in 
dicated  her  —  from  white-shawled 
shoulders  to  white-shod  feet  —  a 
woman  of  distinction,  even  had  it  not 
been  for  the  costly  lace  and  lawn  that 
hung  like  draperies  of  foam  about 
her.  One  long,  white-gloved  hand 
held  a  white  lace  fan  of  wonderful 
workmanship.  Extending  the  Pro 
fessor  her  disengaged  hand  she  said 
quietly,  as  if  she  had  expected  him, 
had  known  him  for  a  long  time,  ad 
dressing  him  by  name : 

"  You  have  kept  me  waiting.  Why 
are  you  not  more  prompt  with  your 

308 


Woman  or  —  What? 

engagements  ?  —  Did  you  not  receive 
my  letters?  or  could  you  not  find  the 
place  appointed?  "  —  Here  she  broke 
into  a  little  musical  laugh  that  seemed 
familiar  to  him,  but,  after  a  hopeless 
effort  to  place  it,  he  helplessly  gave  it 
up.  For  a  moment  he  stood  staring 
at  her,  unable  to  answer  her  fusillade 
of  questions.  Then  before  he  could 
courteously  reply,  assuring  her  that 
she  had  made  a  mistake,  that  it  was 
not  he  whom  she  had  expected,  she 
quietly  took  his  arm,  and  leaning 
lightly  upon  it,  said,  "  Let  us  walk 
in  this  direction ; "  indicating  a  long 
dark  avenue  of  larch  and  elm  trees, 
along  which  the  gravestones  glim 
mered  like  ghosts,  and  at  whose  far 
end,  like  a  torch  at  the  end  of  a  cav 
ern,  glittered  and  hissed  the  globe  of 
an  electric  light.  After  a  pause  she 
continued  questioningly :  "You  are 
glad  to  see  me?  You  do  not  object  to 
walking  with  me  ?  " 
309 


Woman  or  —  What? 

The  Professor  could  only  stammer 
a  breathless  reply  in  the  affirmative 
and  the  negative  to  both  her  ques 
tions  ;  but  which  one  he  said  "  yes  " 
to,  and  which  one  he  said  "  no  "  to, 
he  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  tell. 
He  was  so  entirely  under  the  sway  of 
some  strange  influence  that  it  seemed 
he  had  lost  complete  control  of  all  his 
faculties,  mental  and  physical,  and 
possessed  no  preference  that  did  not 
first  defer  to  this  woman's ;  no  impulse 
that  did  not  emanate  from  the  domin 
ating  intentions  of  herself.  He  won 
dered  if  he  had  not  fallen  asleep  and 
if  he  were  not  dreaming  that  strange 
dream  again;  dreaming  as  he  had 
dreamed  only  last  night ;  that  dream 
which  had  so  absorbed  and  possessed 
him  for  the  past  three  days.  Only 
how  different  was  this  woman  from 
the  supernatural  creature  of  his 
dream,  the  stately,  mournful  beauty 
in  trailing  black!  Here  was  coquet- 
310 


Woman  or  —  What? 

tish  loveliness  clad  in  happy  white, 
defiant  and  yielding,  compliant  and 
resistant.  He  could  see  that  her  hair 
was  intensely  black,  and  from  the 
glimpses  now  and  then  of  the 
classic  purity  of  her  delicate  cheek, 
chin,  and  throat,  he  suspicioned  mar 
vels  of  loveliness  the  darkness  kept 
unrevealed. 

They  had  almost  reached  the  end 
of  the  avenue  of  trees,  and  the  gate 
by  the  sexton's  bell-hung,  dilapidated, 
old  brick  cottage,  and  were  passing 
under  the  electric  light  at  the  en 
trance  to  the  cemetery,  when  she 
stopped,  turned  facing  him,  and  sud 
denly  looked  up  as  if  about  to  put  a 
direct  and  abrupt  question  to  him. 
In  that  moment  he  got  a  full  view  of 
her  face  and  eyes  —  a  face  white  as 
marble,  and  eyes,  two  lucid  topazes, 
a  luminous  yellow. 


The  Vale  of  Tempe 

By  MADISON  CAWEIN 

Price,  $1.50 
Sent  on  receipt  of  price  by  the  publishers 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  CO.,  New  York 


IN  calling  attention  to  THE  VALE  OF  TEMPE,  we  do  so  with 
the  assurance  that   it  is  a  volume  of  classic  quality  and  on 
a  level  with  some  of  the  highest  work  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury.     It  has  been   commended  in  a  very  high  quarter  of 
cultivated  taste  and  judgment,  and  has    been  emphasized  in  the 
reviews  as  of  more  than  ordinary  interest.     We  might  point  to  indi 
vidual   poems  of  unquestionable  beauty,   but  our  purpose  will   be 
better  served  and  our  readers'   confidence   perhaps  better  secured 
if  we  quote  the  ripe  critical  opinion  of  the  Evening  Post,  where  the 
discoverable  faults  are  as  plainly  pointed  out  as  the  generally  high 
and  axceptional  quality  of  the  work  is  plainly  acknowledged. 

"THE  VALE  OF  TEMPE,"  says  the  Post,  "is  a  volume  which, 
along  with  some  crudities  and  weakness,  has  both  the  old  glamour 
of  poesy  and  an  individual  tang,  so  to  say,  that  is  uncommon  in  our 
contemporary  verse.  Mr.  Cawein  draws  his  inspiration  in  equal 
draughts  frdm  the  I^entucky  landscape  and  from  the  world  of  pagan 
poetry,  and  in  at  le&t  two  of  the  aptitudes  of  the  poet  he  stands 
pretty  much  by  himself.  His  turn  for  vivid,  imaginative  phrase  is 
of  the  first  order,  whether  he  is  dealing  with  lurid  grotesque,  as  in 
the  striking  phrase,  '  gaunt  as  huddle  terror,'  or  with  the  beautiful, 
as  in  his  fine  couplet  — 

" '  Invisible  crystals  of  aerial  ring 

Against  the  wind  I  hear  the  bluebird  fling.' 

His  command  of  the  technique  of  tone  color  is  also  exceptional.  He 
is  a  master  of  tone,  whether  in  the  difficult  key  of  '  v '  as  in  this 
description  of  '  Oaks  in  Spring '  (a  quotation  from  the  poem),  or  in 
the  initiative  pedal-tones  of  this :  (a  quotation  from  the  poem, '  Wind 
and  Cloud ').  In  poetry  like  Mr.  Cawein's,  for  the  most  part  so 
limpid  and  musical  in  tone,  small  discords  are  specially  noticeable." 
Here  the  critic  points  to  some  "  minor  defects  "  and  proceeds :  "  All 
this,  however,  is  by  the  way.  Mr.  Cawein  is  a  'true  poet,'  both  in 
his  art  and  in  his  inspiration.  The  concluding  strophes  of  his  fine 
ode,  '  In  Solitary  Places,'  will  serve  to  show  his  safety  in  the  Siege 
Perilous  of  the  poetic  hall." 


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